A school for the deaf

Sunday, April 27, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.

A charter school scheduled to open this fall will be the first school in Nevada dedicated to students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Six years in the planning, the Las Vegas Charter School of the Deaf received final approval from the Clark County School District on Thursday.

As Emily Richmond reported in Thursday’s Las Vegas Sun, the district has 405 deaf or hard of hearing students, 65 percent more than the number enrolled a decade ago.

State law requires the School District to meet the needs of students with special needs, but this school should go well beyond meeting needs.

Currently, students with hearing impairments are either grouped together at a campus or have an interpreter in a mainstream classroom. The charter school plans to have teachers who are fluent in American Sign Language and students will be taught to read and write in English as well. There are also plans to have students interact with hearing-impaired adults, who can serve as role models.

The school plans to start small, with 20 to 30 children in kindergarten through third grade, and plans to grow as the students do. The school’s focus is on increasing the graduation rate for hearing-impaired students and preparing them for college.

School officials are finalizing plans to open in the fall and are still looking to hire qualified teachers. They recently leased classroom space, although they hope that will be only temporary. Their dream is to have their own campus.

They, along with School District administrators, expect to see the school prosper. We hope so. Nevada has never had a wealth of services, particularly for the disabled, so this school is long overdue.