Deaf teacher spurs quiet revolution in Winter Park classroom

When coach Russell walks into the room the students become silent. It’s funny to watch the 6-foot-4-inch 250-pound football coach timidly try to communicate with Ms. Loomis. It’s amazing how such a small woman can make intimidation flow the other direction, just by being deaf.

In her first year of teaching at Winter Park High School, Ashley Loomis reinvigorated the school, launching the Sign Language Club along the way. And she has managed to do it all without speaking a single word in the classroom.

“There have been numerous times where I have faced discrimination about my deafness,” she said.

But not at WPHS. Here she said she’s thriving, creating a culture that understands life without sound.

There is a big difference between deaf, and Deaf. The former is the simple state of being unable to hear; the latter is an entire culture, a community of people who are deaf. Though Ms. Loomis has shown her ability to flourish in the hearing world, there has been a lot that she has had to get used to.

In the deaf community, communication can be abrupt and blunt. Feelings are rarely spared. Get a bad hair cut in the hearing community, and people are likely to say it looks good, sparing feelings with a white lie. A deaf person might say it looked better before. In the deaf community, it’s considered extremely rude to talk in front of deaf people; an idiosyncrasy that she has had to assimilate herself to in order to succeed in a world where nearly everyone talks.

Though Loomis is doing well now, things haven’t always been so easy.

Shortly after she was born in Orlando in 1987, Loomis was determined deaf due to unknown causes. Being born into a hearing family, she was virtually unable to participate in family discu-sions growing up, watching lips and expressions play out in front of her as if on a muted television. But her mother and grandmother bridged the gap into her quiet world, learning to sign when she was young. Both of them are now fluent.

When she was seven years old her parents divorced. She lived with her mother then. Looking back on things, Ashley was “too young to remember much,” she said.

“I remember not seeing my dad for three years.”

One day when she was at Lake Sybelia Elementary School, a deaf classmate invited her to her birthday party.

“Her dad and my mom met at the party, and the rest is history.” Loomis gained a stepfather who knew sign language, and a stepsister who already knew her better than most. For the first time in her life, her whole family could join in on conversations.

She grew into a daredevil from there, seeking joy from danger rather than living a quieter life.

“I am usually a happy person and life is too short to be otherwise,” she said.

Skydiving is a chaotic experience; the wind is deafening as it tears past your ears and makes you wonder why you have just jumped out of a perfectly good plane. But for Ashley “the flight ride up was the most frightening part. Everything became so little. After the jump, it was so smooth and peaceful,” Loomis said.

She went to the one in Titusville, with the highest jump. But it was the tumble down the road that finally gave Loomis a new challenge.

“The most recent memorable moment in my life is being able to walk again after a long recovery from a motorcycle accident,” she said. A couple years ago, Ashley was riding on the back of her friend’s motorcycle they were hit head-on as they rode through an intersection.

She was tossed from the bike and tumbled to a stop, sliding across pavement like sandpaper with a broken hip and two broken ankles. She made it back from that moment and walked into Winter Park High School looking for the next challenge.

“There are many places that are unsure if a Deaf person is capable for the job, so I am blessed to have Winter Park believe in me.” And that they do. Just ask Tim Smith, Winter Park High School’s principal of six years. Originally, he thought it would be a good opportunity to see ASL taught by someone who always uses it, he said.

Though he never really had any concerns, he needed to be shown that aside from a pleasant smile and wave in the hallway, Loomis brought something valuable to WPHS. The only real concern facing Smith is where to put all of the newly interested students in her classes for the upcoming year.