At Del Val, students have a choice of three different language classes: German, Spanish, and ASL. However, the ASL program is silently fading out of the school curriculum.

American Sign Language has been taught at Del Val since 2018. It started out with Ms. Kara Trunk, who left Del Val during October 2024.

Del Val stopped offering ASL to incoming freshmen in 2025.

The reason the class is being cut is rooted in difficulty finding people qualified enough, and willing to teach the class in person.

Currently, the class is being supervised in person, and the teacher is on zoom.

“This year, we went to Proximity Learning which is where the instructors have been coming from,” Tara Civitillo, Del Val’s director of curriculum said. “We’ve continued looking and we’re posting the position again but there is very much a lack of certified instructors.”

ASL has been a popular class throughout its time at Del Val.

Many students who did take ASL enjoyed it, and thought it was an interesting class.

Ms. Kaitlyn Donnelly who is a Del Val alumna and who is currently the in person supervisor of the class.

“The class was always a good time, and I wish that everyone got to experience it,” said Donnelly. “The zoom is nice because both the teachers now are deaf teachers so they are learning from a deaf individual which is the best way to learn ASL. But, it is difficult because the kids don’t want to be on the iPad for 84 minutes.”

 Senior Ariana Scurti stated  “I was an ASL student, and I very much enjoyed it, I thought learning about deaf culture was so interesting, and to know that it’s being taken out of the curriculum for freshmen is so sad to me.”