My local (not close, but in this sense local!) Deaf school is practically empty at the moment in primary. The districts will not pay for places, so the school is struggling for money to cope with the needs of the kids who already go there cos so many places are empty, so price per person goes up so the district is ever less willing to pay the price!
Their system is to place a child in the most mainstream type of place possible as a first placement, then keep moving them along with a "special school" as a placement of last resort. So by the time the kid finally arrives at the Deaf school they have had the trauma of 5 or more failed placements behind them and have little to no education, plus the primary department of the Deaf school is empty. Some parents are paying full fees to send their kids there because they are being turned down for funded places.
Children are always referred for a half-term probationary period to see if it is the right placement for them, which gives no sense of security to the child and parents, the parents have to buy uniforms for the sake of potentially half a term, and if the kid loves it there but the authority pulls out from funding because they reckon the needs can be met elsewhere they pull them back out again, it's awful. The school is tired of being used as an assessment process, put them in the Deaf school where they will figure out what equipment is needed, teach them some BSL and Deaf Studies, tweak the hearing aids/implants because they have the capability to actually program the kids' aids in the school, not in a soundproof isolation booth. Then once the Deaf school has got the child sorted out and stable they pass them back to a cheaper placement!
They don't understand that an adult interpreter is so fundamentally different from being able to speak to your own friends in your own language, directly. If you want to do something naughty you can't cos there is always an adult hovering with you. I used to say to my BSL students when I was teaching that if they wanted to use the interpreter to tell their friends the lesson was totally boring then go ahead, as this is something the other kids can do whenever they like, why do the deaf kids have to be little angels?