Latest News (Posted February 25, 2005) - Sgt. Jay Beatty, stationed in Iraq since February 20, 2004, is scheduled to come home on March 15, 2005. Sgt. Beatty will be de-briefed at Camp Pendleton in California for post-op excercises for several weeks, then return home to his family in Maryland.

The staff and students of KDES and the Gallaudet community have scheduled a "welcome home" party for Jay and his family in May.

(Posted January 3, 2005) - On the Green: Clerc Center Happenings

Iraq War Correspondents: KDES Students Exchange Frontline News with US Soldier

By Susan M. Flanigan

The war in Iraq can seem far away unless you know someone there. For the students of Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES), the war is as immediate as the connection made through an ongoing on-line dialogue with U.S. soldier Sgt. Earl (Jay) Beatty. Through a new kind of correspondence called a blog, the students of Team 6/7/8 exchange letters and photographs with Beatty in Iraq and with his wife, Donna, and family in the U.S.

Beatty is a husband, a father, a Maryland state trooper, and a Marine. In August 2004, he was shipped to Camp Pendleton for training. In late August, Beatty was deployed to the town of Fallujah , in Iraq . Prior to leaving for his new post, Beatty was asked if he would be willing to communicate with KDES students while stationed in Iraq as part of a visual literacy project. He eagerly accepted the offer. He and Donna have corresponded with the students since that time.

The students set up their message center in the TecEds lab where staff members help them to send and receive e-mail from Iraq. The spontaneity of the Internet and the flexibility of digital pictures have enabled the students to have a front-line experience of the war through the eyes of Beatty.

“During the first month in Iraq , Beatty was transferred to so many locations that he never received formal mail,” said Phil Bogdan, KDES art teacher/researcher, who spearheaded the project with the students. “The first messages Beatty received were those of the students and he was enormously appreciative.”

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