SANFORD, NC - Due to a generous gift from the North Carolina Scottish Rite Masonic Foundation (NCSRMF), Lee County Schools is now better positioned to support students struggling with hearing loss and difficulties in our community. NCSRMF provided new diagnostic audiology equipment to refit the district’s diagnostic testing center, expanding the ability to provide services quickly to students struggling to hear.
“When a student is having difficulty hearing they miss vital instruction,” emphasized Lee County Schools Educational Audiologist, Heather Sprague. Sprague joined Lee County Schools from another district that was outfitted with a hearing clinic and knew the benefits to students and families that a testing center could have first hand. “Missing instruction can have long standing impacts on a student’s academic progress, and the sooner we can get a child tested and address any issue they are having, the sooner we can get them back to learning.”
NCSRMF has made it their mission to support speech and hearing programs at Universities across the state in rural areas where access to diagnostic equipment and professional audiologists is more challenging than in the state’s metro areas. Lee County Schools is the first K-12 school district the organization has partnered with in support of the group’s mission to give financial support for the treatment of children with speech, hearing, and learning disabilities who may receive services with little or no cost to families.
Gene Cobb serves as the Sovereign Grand Inspector General in North Carolina for the NCSRMF. With his ties to the Sanford area from serving 11 years as pastor at St. Luke United Methodist Church, this Scottish Rite partnership felt like a natural outgrowth of the group’s mission. “I have a deep love for the people of Lee County,” explained Cobb. “When you put that together with the Scottish Rite’s commitment to helping children with speech, hearing, and learning disabilities, you have the formula for what you see happening.”
For much of the group’s service over the last several years, they have given grants to Western Carolina University, Appalachian State University and East Carolina University to help serve audiology needs in rural communities. As Cobb explained, recently the group began looking for ways to get assistance into more communities, perhaps even those outside the reach of those major universities.
“After some careful consideration and thinking, we realized that we can develop a more active presence in communities by reaching out to local school systems.” Cobb noted that he began conversations with district personnel and eventually Dr. Dossenbach, and they were able to have the pieces fall into place quickly. “We started having conversations here with Lee County and here we are after about 14 months with a state-of-the-art diagnostic audiology booth to serve the students and the community.”
Their gift will allow Sprague and the district to transform a soundproof booth that had been converted to a storage area into a fully functional state-of-the-art diagnostic testing center. “Lee County was really in a unique position because we had a soundproof booth installed at J.R. Ingram Elementary School back in the 1990's was not in use,” noted Sprague. “This gift will allow children in Lee county to receive comprehensive hearing evaluations at no cost to families, shortening the time between identifying a hearing issue at school and diagnostic testing.”
This offering is unique to school districts in the state, as currently only Wake & Mecklenburg Counties are able to offer these services to students. Sprague and the NCSRMF are hopeful that this program can be an example to other districts across the state and open the door to increasing access to audiology testing for students in rural communities.
“When a student is struggling to hear, they are not able to fully engage with the curriculum and instruction provided in our classrooms,” said Dr. Chris Dossenbach, Superintendent of Lee County Schools. “We are grateful to the Scottish Rite for their partnership. Having these resources gives us an additional tool we need to break down barriers to educational growth and provide necessary support for many students in our district.”
“We believe that helping children who are having hearing difficulties, helping their families, improves not just their lives but everyone’s lives, because it helps them to truly communicate,” explained Cobb. “So, really what we are doing here is to help these children improve life for all of us on this planet. As the Scottish Rite, that is our passion, and we will keep that as our passion as long as there is a breath in us.”