Sitting in a coffee shop in Oak Bluffs this week, Casandra Paasche could barely contain her hands as she spoke. Though speaking to a hearing person, her hands followed up every word with a signed gesture. As a sign language interpreter, she has made a career of translating spoken English for the deaf, and signing comes as naturally to her as breathing.

This year, Ms. Paasche’s expertise in sign language will add another layer to a time-honored tradition for Edgartown school children. At the Edgartown School’s annual march to the sea early this afternoon, Ms. Paasche will not only stand to interpret the ceremony for the two deaf students that she works with at the school, but will be joined by the entire student body in signing the Pledge of Allegiance.

Ms. Paasche was hired this year as an interpreter for two elementary school students. “It’s the first year the school has had an interpreter,” she said. “It’s a total irony,” she added, referring to the fact that two hearing-impaired students would wind up in the same grade at the same school, living in the same town on the Vineyard. She said the support system at the Edgartown School is strong and has opened doors for both students and teachers to learn a new method of communication.

“It’s been a great year,” said Ms. Paasche. “I offered, and several kids took, a sign language class after school that I teach. It’s up to eighth grade that people have learned it. So there are several students now that will see my students in the hallway and start signing with them. It’s awesome.”

Ms. Paasche works alongside kindergarten teacher Denise Searle, who has also picked up enough sign language to get by on her own, if necessary. “If I’m ever not in the classroom, she knows enough basic sign language to get her point across,” said Ms. Paasche. “She’s certainly come a long way, and so have the other students in our actual class.”

Having an in-house interpreter also gave school administrators the idea to add a new element to the school’s annual march to the sea, when by long tradition students walk from the school to Memorial Wharf on Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend to throw flowers in the water and commemorate those who were lost at sea during wars. The ceremony includes a recitation of the Gettysburg Address and also the Pledge of Allegience. This year Ms. Paasche was to teach students to sign the Pledge of Allegiance, allowing all to participate.

The parade of students will leave the school at 1 p.m. today, and march to patriotic music provided by the Eagle Band, led by band director Zach Tileston. Once students arrive at Memorial Wharf, the ceremony will launch with a welcome from principal John Stevens, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. “Mr. Stevens asked me to choose a student from the school to be up there with me signing the Pledge of Allegiance,” said Ms. Paasche. She chose third grader Emma Searle, who also happens to be teacher Denise Searle’s daughter.

The pledge will be followed by a recital of Walt Whitman’s poem Oh Captain, My Captain. Fred B. (Ted) Morgan Jr., a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, will appear as guest speaker. The eighth grade class will recite the Gettysburg Address before students cast flowers into to sea in honor of those who have lost their lives fighting for the country.

And Ms. Paasche will be there to interpret the whole thing, not least so that her two young students may join in the celebration with their fellow schoolmates.

“Her experience here and those two students’ experiences here have become more than just Sandy interpreting for two students. It’s become Sandy acquainting the rest of the student body with their language of signing, with American Sign Language. And teaching other kids, not only in that particular class, but other classes, sign language,” said Mr. Stevens. “The school has really embraced that whole knowledge and that whole learning experience of not only the sign language, but the deaf community and the culture that goes along with it,” he added.

Ms. Paasche said it’s not always easy for young children to learn sign language; there are four different variations of sign language in the U.S. alone, so it doesn’t always translate universally. But children at the Edgartown School are learning more and more every day.

Her own fascination with the language began at age 12, when a deaf child her age moved into the neighborhood. She remembers riding her bike past his house repeatedly to watch closely while he signed all his words. “I started, at 12 and 13, getting books and learning. And then I became friends with the kid and we grew up together, and now here I am. You know when you ask a kid, people ask, what do you want to be when you grow up? I literally said, an interpreter,” she said.

In 2007, she graduated from the University of Southern Maine with a double major in sign language interpreting and sociology, and a minor in deaf studies. After working for several years as a freelance interpreter, she landed the job at the Edgartown School and moved to the Island.

And since the students she interprets for are still in their earliest school years, she expects to be around for some years to come; along the way she hopes to help other students learn the language.

She feels that the Vineyard is a perfect place for her to pursue her career, especially given the history of the deaf community in Chilmark that has attracted the interest of historians, writers and educators through the decades. In Chilmark, from the early 1800s through the 1950s, unusually high numbers of children were born deaf, so many members of the community became fluent in sign language to enhance communication. A unique form of sign language was developed on the Island over those years. “There’s not much of a deaf community here [now] . . . but you even read in textbooks that the Martha’s Vineyard sign language has influenced American Sign Language. That’s how big it was,” said Ms. Paasche.