We moved halfway across the country to be near the best residential school we could find - and bought a house 7 miles from the school, so she could be either day student or dorm. She prefers the dorm, and we keep open the option of coming home for evenings during the week any time she wants to. Also, she can come and bring friends home if their parents agree to it. She is home on weekends and all holidays. We drop in at the school fairly often, and I've applied for a school nurse job there. I know not all residential schools are safe, but we've done what we can to be sure she has the best of both worlds.
My daughter is a solid member of the Deaf community, still has pretty low level reading skills, uses her voice some, and signs fluently, but in a rather simple form, and leans more toward English structure than pure ASL. She will not be ready to graduate on time, but she's not in the vocational track either. She is an intermediate level - a delayed graduation/low literacy. I hope she will be willing to stay in school long enough to get a real diploma and not just the certificate of attendance.
A deaf mainstreamed teenager, coollgurll, put in her two cents:
I'm a high school Senior and deaf. I have been mainstreamed all my life. I have interpreters full time ever since kindergarten. If you ask me if I wish to go to the deaf school, I would say no because I'm really happy the way I am. I know ASL but I like english better because I have some friends who use ASL & their reading is low. I don't want low grades & I make honor rolls. I have different friends hearing, hoh, & deaf plus my boyfriend is hearing... think it depends on each individual & how they do in school.
JoFire04 joined the conversation with her opinion:
I personally prefer the choice of both. I have had a good experience in my education in mainstreamed and residental. I can get more opportunities in a residental school than a public school, but then who knows, it depends on the child itself. If i do happen to have deaf children or hoh, depending (but who cares!), i would have them stay at home and go to school - however in my case, the quality of education sucks in my county where I live. Interpreters suck pretty much. I would home school them with some cases in the academic schools until they reach middle school age and ask them if they want to go to the residental school or not. I would compromise with them and say, stay at the school for 6 months or so for experience.
...Some people tout "4th grade" reading level at residental schools. Again....it depends on the child's parents who have an obligation to oversee the education process and the right to equal education in ANY location, private, public, residental and so forth. Parents have that responsibility rather than just sending them to the residental school because they "can't handle the job of taking care of a deaf child".
deafgrrl replied to JoFire04:
Yeah, and most of those people are anti-Deaf and don't even realize that oral kids AND mainstreamed kids ALSO have poor reading levels. It's not just res schools!
A teen at a school for the deaf, LilQualls, wrote:
I am a senior in Kansas School for the Deaf and i m in 5th grade level, i have a difficult time to improve my writing and reading... just becuase i dont read any book for my spare time... that s what cause me... but look at my mathemics skills, histroic skills. i can read very well... i have a friends in my school they are good at reading but some of them are not good at mathemics, it was vary...
I think deaf children should go to school for the deaf... maybe some of ya forget abt their first language is America Sign Language (ASL)
...I used attend to mainstream school with no deaf program... i did never happy there, until i moved to school for the deaf and im so truly happy now! I m looking forward to my GRADUATION!
Another parent with a combination mainstream/school for the deaf experience, Pua27, remarked:
I don't think that a mainstream school if for every deaf or hard of hearing child. I had my oldest son in a mainstream school in Oregon, and it just didn't work for him. The mainstream school I had him in was a great school. The other 3 hard of hearing children in his class had no problems, however my son really struggled with the mainstream school. It was to hard for him to focus on his teacher and the interrupter at the same time. I now have both of my hard of hearing children in the California School For The Deaf, and what an improvement I have seen in my oldest child.
