Getting to Know.. Clarke School for the Deaf

Founded in 1867 as the nation's first permanent oral school for the deaf in the U.S., the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts changed its name in 2010 to the Clark Schools for Hearing and Speech. Opposed the use of sign language, Clarke works with children before school age to prep them for mainstreaming and sends master's degrees teachers into mainstream classes as “itinerant teachers." The private school has branches in Canton, Massachusetts, Jacksonville, Philadelphia, and New York City, New York. At last report, the average cost for attending the school is more than $55,000 and enrollment has dramatically dropped in the last decade.