6.18 5. Deaf Schools and Related Issues

• Library: Disability Law and Practice, Vol. 3 (NY) 2017

5.. Deaf Schools and Related Issues

As the 1992 federal policy guidelines note: “Even the availability of interpreter services in the [mainstream] educational setting may not address deaf children’s need for direct and meaningful communication with peers and teachers.”¹⁴⁸

Language acquisition, learning and social/emotional development occurs for hearing children in a communication environment that is totally accessible. Immersion in the comparably hospitable environment provided by a deaf residential school is the appropriate placement for many deaf children who use sign language as their primary means of communication.

Deaf schools are an essential component of the continuum of services.¹⁴⁹ Given the distinct benefits of such an environment, neither official policy nor informal custom may legitimately require a child to “fail” in a mainstream program in order to be entitled to attend a deaf school. That said, the continued viability of deaf schools is questioned. In Barron ex rel D.B. v. South Dakota Bd. of Regents, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on September 9, 2011 held that the State Board of Regents did not violate the IDEA when it closed the state school for the deaf.¹⁵⁰

With the advent of mainstreaming, the quality of services at some deaf schools, it should be noted, has...