Ms. Johnson is our school’s new ASL (American Sign Language) teacher. She grew up here and even went to school at Eastmont High School, she left to go to college at Western Oregon University, but she’s been back home for two and a half months for her first year teaching. 

A fun fact about Miss Johnson is that her favorite sign in ASL is ‘become’.

Ms. Johnson didn’t plan to become a teacher, she went to college for interpreting but then was offered a job at EHS a little while before graduating College. The reason she took this teaching job was to give back what she learned. 

“It’s very humbling,” Ms. Johnson explained. 

Ms. Johnson first wanted to learn ASL after the summer between her freshman and sophomore years. She was a counselor at a summer camp and she was placed with a DeafBlind camper. A DeafBlind is when a person is unable to hear and see fully. Ms. Johnson learned some sign language from other counselors in order to be able to communicate better. After that summer Ms. Johnson took three years of ASL in high school and continued into college.  

Ms. Johnson is a co-adviser for the ASL club that meets every Thursday. 

“ASL club is for the deaf community and for other students to be involved in the deaf community,” Ms. Johnson said. 

Ms. Johnson says she wants students to know that the ASL club is for everyone, even if they don’t know any sign language at all or aren’t in her ASL class.