(a) The Legislature finds and declares that:

(1) Pupils with low-incidence disabilities, as a group, make up less than 1 percent of the total statewide enrollment for kindergarten through grade 12.

(2) Pupils with low-incidence disabilities require highly specialized services, equipment, and materials.

(b) The Legislature further finds and declares that:

(1) Deafness involves the most basic of human needs-the ability to communicate with other human beings. Many hard-of-hearing and deaf children use an appropriate communication mode, sign language, which may be their primary language, while others express and receive language orally and aurally, with or without visual signs or cues. Still others, typically young hard-of-hearing and deaf children, lack any significant language skills. It is essential for the well-being and growth of hard-of-hearing and deaf children that educational programs recognize the unique nature of deafness and ensure that all hard-of-hearing and deaf children have appropriate, ongoing, and fully accessible educational opportunities.

(2) It is essential that hard-of-hearing and deaf children, like all children, have an education in which their unique communication mode is respected, utilized, and developed to an appropriate level of proficiency.

(3) It is essential that hard-of-hearing and deaf children have an education in which special education teachers, psychologists, speech therapists, assessors, administrators, and other special education personnel understand the unique nature of deafness and are specifically trained to work with hard-of-hearing and deaf pupils. It is essential that hard-of-hearing and deaf children have an education in which their special education teachers are proficient in the primary language mode of those children.

(4) It is essential that hard-of-hearing and deaf children, like all children, have an education with a sufficient number of language mode peers with whom they can communicate directly and who are of the same, or approximately the same, age and ability level.

(5) It is essential that hard-of-hearing and deaf children have an education in which their parents and, where appropriate, hard-of-hearing and deaf people are involved in determining the extent, content, and purpose of programs.

(6) Hard-of-hearing and deaf children would benefit from an education in which they are exposed to hard-of-hearing and deaf role models.

(7) It is essential that hard-of-hearing and deaf children, like all children, have programs in which they have direct and appropriate access to all components of the educational process, including, but not limited to, recess, lunch, and extracurricular social and athletic activities.

(8) It is essential that hard-of-hearing and deaf children, like all children, have programs in which their unique vocational needs are provided for, including appropriate research, curricula, programs, staff, and outreach.

(9) Each hard-of-hearing and deaf child should have a determination of the least restrictive educational environment that takes into consideration these legislative findings and declarations.

(10) Given their unique communication needs, hard-of-hearing and deaf children would benefit from the development and implementation of regional programs for children with low-incidence disabilities.

(Amended by Stats. 1994, Ch. 1126, Sec. 1. Effective September 30, 1994. Implementation contingent upon funding, as prescribed by Sec. 6 of Ch. 1126.)