Started by the former school rock band, the annual Guitar Festival has developed into a multi-band show for the Lafayette community. Starting in 2024, the festival partnered with ASL 2 classes to have students sign alongside each song, though only a few songs were able to have a signer due to a lack of students who had the necessary skill level.
With the introduction of a third level of ASL this year, and thus more students who had learned how to sign alongside songs by the time the guitar festival began preparations, almost every song was able to have a sign language accompaniment. The only songs which did not have ASL students paired with them were those performed by Tuesday Night Rock Band who performed an original song in addition to their setlist.
Signers took extra time outside of class to learn and practice their songs in order to bring accessibility to the event should there have been any Deaf or hard-of-hearing people in the audience.
“I think its awesome that we are the only school in the district, out of all the high schools, that does anything like this. It gives students an opportunity to [perform] on stage but do it in a different language,” Bates said.
