Do States Need Schools for the Deaf?

[yizuman]

As for whether states are obliged to provide separate schools for deaf children who could be mainstreamed, I can comment only on the states’ legal, not moral, obligation. In short, the answer is that they have no more obligation for these children than for children with other disabilities. The primarily applicable federal law, the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, known as the I.D.E.A., has two provisions that support this qualified answer.

On the one hand, the law requires states to provide “a continuum of alternative placements” to meet the needs of children with disabilities. Obviously, this mandate supports specialized day and residential placements, although not necessarily within the state and for each disability.

On the other hand, the law requires placing each individual child with a disability in the “least restrictive environment,” which means educating the child “to the maximum extent appropriate … with children who are nondisabled.” Equally obviously, this mandate does not squarely support schools for the deaf. The key word is “appropriate,” which is the bridge to the overriding obligation of providing the individual child with a “free appropriate public education.”

Over all, in a series of decisions that determined the appropriateness of placement in a state school for the deaf, the courts yielded mixed results, depending on the individual child. The courts’ frameworks for defining the “least restrictive environment” recognized cost as a pertinent but only secondary factor, and this consideration is applied to all disability categories, including deafness. Moreover, in the past few decades, the states have seen a trend toward deinstitutionalization, which has reduced segregated schools for other disabilities, like emotional disturbance and intellectual disabilities.

Thus, the key legally is whether the individual child with a hearing impairment needs such a separate and specialized placement to meet those two related I.D.E.A. requirements: a free appropriate public education, in the least restrictive environment. In the cases in which a child does need a separate school — and there may not be many such cases — this placement could be in either another state or a setting other than a state school for the deaf. Neither the I.D.E.A. nor its case law requires state schools for the deaf any more than state schools for any other disability.

Source: What the Law Says About Educating the Disabled - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

Yiz

 

[deafdyke]

Why are lawmakers SO obessed with "inclusion" of kids with disabilties? Why do they harp on the fact that kids who attend Deaf Schools are "segregated?"
Granted, we shouldn't go back to the old days, when public schools could legally deny attendance.....but on the other hand...........there is a reason why deaf schools have survived almost forty years of mainstreaming being the norm. Mainstream schools do not serve dhh kids very well. I mean if mainstream schools served dhh kids, there would have been a huge leap in acheivement. Yet there hasn't been a huge leap in acheivement.

 

[MCB]

Deaf students in large urban areas can be brought together in classrooms that can be tailored for their individual needs. I have seen what I judged to be excellent deaf education in Shawnee Mission school district in Kansas, practically next door to KSD.

Deaf students in rural areas are often isolated, bringing about social and psychological issues. The same can be said about deaf students from dysfunctional families, particularly families which refuse to learn sign. Another issue is deaf students where there are other issues, such as a third language in the home, or where the level of literacy is low, and the school has made reasonable effort to urge the family to learn. Late-identified students also need intensive interventions to make up what they lost out on.

So, there will always be deaf schools for students who have additional needs which cannot be met in the home district.

IMHO

 

[shel90]

I accept a large BiBi Deaf program in a public school or Deaf schools.

I do not accept mainstreaming but sometimes there is no other choice. I can only accept mainstreming if the deaf child has ASL, knowledge about Deaf culture, and have Deaf role models.

 

[jillio]

Why are lawmakers SO obessed with "inclusion" of kids with disabilties? Why do they harp on the fact that kids who attend Deaf Schools are "segregated?"
Granted, we shouldn't go back to the old days, when public schools could legally deny attendance.....but on the other hand...........there is a reason why deaf schools have survived almost forty years of mainstreaming being the norm. Mainstream schools do not serve dhh kids very well. I mean if mainstream schools served dhh kids, there would have been a huge leap in acheivement. Yet there hasn't been a huge leap in acheivement.

Money. And while inclusion is the least expensive option for many disabilities, it is not so for deaf students.

 

[jillio]

I accept a large BiBi Deaf program in a public school or Deaf schools.

I do not accept mainstreaming but sometimes there is no other choice. I can only accept mainstreming if the deaf child has ASL, knowledge about Deaf culture, and have Deaf role models.

Me, too. If we could get the self contained programs to adopt a bi-bi philosophy, I don't have a problem with that. I personally don't care where the programs are located physically, as long as the deaf students' needs are being met.

Unfortunately, no self contained programs are willing to make that switch. It is only the deaf schools that are doing it.

 

[MCB]

Question:

I have seen speech-language therapists who refuse to teach oral language skills to deaf students. Similarly, I have seen the same therapist, in particular, who refused to work with kids on the autism spectrum. One student, dropped from services, later complained about others teasing him about "talking like a robot."

Shh, Jill. I want to see others' responses, too.

It seems like such therapists refuse to do any long-term work with students who need it. Only quickly remediated articulation errors are of importance to them.

 

[jillio]

Question:

I have seen speech-language therapists who refuse to teach oral language skills to deaf students. Similarly, I have seen the same therapist, in particular, who refused to work with kids on the autism spectrum. One student, dropped from services, later complained about others teasing him about "talking like a robot."

Shh, Jill. I want to see others' responses, too.

It seems like such therapists refuse to do any long-term work with students who need it. Only quickly remediated articulation errors are of importance to them.

My lips are sealed!:P

 

[deafdyke]

Question:

I have seen speech-language therapists who refuse to teach oral language skills to deaf students. Similarly, I have seen the same therapist, in particular, who refused to work with kids on the autism spectrum. One student, dropped from services, later complained about others teasing him about "talking like a robot."

Shh, Jill. I want to see others' responses, too.

It seems like such therapists refuse to do any long-term work with students who need it. Only quickly remediated articulation errors are of importance to them.

Are we talking about mainstream teachers/therapists? And yes....the simple fact of the matter is that teachers in the mainstream are not well trained to teach kids with low incidence disabilties. Heck, I got lumped in with the dumbasses in the Resource Room, and I was the type of kid who took two forign languages.

 

[deafdyke]

Money. And while inclusion is the least expensive option for many disabilities, it is not so for deaf students.

And the thing is, the ONLY reason why more dhh kids aren't told to go to deaf school, is b/c we come with extra money. Mainstream programs can legally give us minimal accomondations, and be said to giving us a FAPE. ....and that happens too often. You know I know of a hoh student in a LIFE SKILLS classroom?!?!

 

[FadedRose]

I do think Deaf schools are needed in all states.
When I was in grade school I was placed in an all deaf class room, although mainstreamed and oral only I did much better academically in that setting than I did in high school when the one I went to did not have any services for the deaf and I had to just deal with it. I had note takers and all videos were CC'd but it wasn't easy for me because there were too many noises around me, the teachers were not aware of how to communicate with me and would turn their backs when reading or asking questions and answering them, what they wrote on the blackboard wasn't all of the information beause half if it was spoken. It was stressful.

as for the speech therapist-the one I was seeing was against my main streaming and said I needed to be in a Deaf school and she was not happy with how the school was treating me I was the ONLY deaf student at the high school I attended.

deaf schools need to be in all states, period. why it's such an issue is beyond me. it should not be.

 

[FadedRose]

And the thing is, the ONLY reason why more dhh kids aren't told to go to deaf school, is b/c we come with extra money. Mainstream programs can legally give us minimal accomondations, and be said to giving us a FAPE. ....and that happens too often. You know I know of a hoh student in a LIFE SKILLS classroom?!?![/QUOTE]

Ha! I had a deaf friend in another school being mainstreamed and they tried to put her in the special section. She moved to another state and was placed in gifted classes . I do not trust the public educational system as a result of seeing how deaf and hoh students are treated and short changed.