Tampa High School Celebrates Sign Language Program

The 2024 edition of Tampa’s Middleton High School yearbook is out and there’s a page dedicated to the school’s American Sign Language (ASL) program.

“Umm, sure, that’s sign language, all right,” said Rebeccata Ylor, a certified ASL instructor. “But it ain’t ASL.”

Ylor works for the state of Florida’s Emergency Management Department, teaching and supervising interpreters who work for county governments in order to convey accurate information to the deaf community in the event of emergencies, a position deemed necessary after a debacle involving an unqualified interpreter in Manatee County addressing the community about Hurricane Irma in 2017.

”I guess this is a few steps from warning people about pizza and monsters and the phrase ‘help you at that time to use bear big,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean,” she said. “Although I’m not sure it’s necessarily a few steps in the right direction.”

No word yet on whether someone will be hired to serve in the same capacity as Ylor with the Florida Board of Education.