The Tennessee Schools for the Deaf (TSD) is a state-operated residential and day school for

deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an Audiology, audiological condition. In this context it ...

and hard-of-hearing students who reside in the state of Tennessee ranging from pre-kindergarten to grade 12 also includes a post-secondary transition/occupational program. It is located in

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

within the historic

Island Home Park Island Home Park is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, located in the southeastern part of the city along the Tennessee River. Developed as a streetcar suburb in the early 1900s, the neighborhood retains most of its original ho ...

neighborhood.

History

General John Alexander Cocke introduced legislation establishing Tennessee School for the Deaf that was passed by the House on January 29, 1844. Revered Thomas MacIntire who was a highly recommended teacher from what is now the Ohio School for the Deaf was selected to lead the school as principal and teacher. He opened the school on April 14, 1845, and the first students began class on the first Monday of June, 1845. When the first school for the Deaf was established in Tennessee in 1845, it was named Tennessee Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. The original school location would be one-room school house with 6 students. The schoolhouse was first moved a few years after its founding to a larger tract of land near Broadway and Summit Hill Drive. After brief closure due to civil war, Tennessee Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb relocated to current location at Island Home and renamed itself. The school changed its name t
Tennessee School for the Deaf
in 1924.

Academics

TSD offers several programs ranging from infants to post high school. Those programs include outreach, Parent(s) of Deaf Mentoring, Preschool, Elementary, Upper School (Middle and High School), Comprehensive Adult Program. The Parent(s) of Deaf Mentor program works closely with parents and their deaf or hard of hearing children from ages 0 to 3. When a student reaches 18 months of age, he or she can enroll at ISD as an official student. Preschool handles children up until Pre-

Kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...

. Elementary provides academics and activities for Kindergarten through 4th grade students. Middle school hosts grades 5 to 8, and High School hosts grades 9 through 12.

Athletics

The Tennessee School for the Deaf is a part of the

Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA), along with the affiliated Tennessee Middle School Athletic Association (TMSAA), is an organization which administers junior and senior high school sporting events in Tennessee. The TSSAA ...

. It fields high school sports teams in

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

, cheerleading,

cross-country running Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open coun ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

, and

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

, which compete against public school teams as well as teams from other schools for the deaf.

Cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

is also included in the athletic program.

Residency

Since students come from all over the state of Tennessee, TSD is a residential school. The school system has cottages which act as dormitories. Children aged 3–21 are allowed, with specific limitations, to reside on campus. Students arrive on Sundays and depart on Fridays. Cottages are for students who live far enough not to be able to travel by bus every day to school, typically those students who exceed 60-90 minute one way trip. There are cottages for male and female students: Preschool, Elementary, Middle School, and High School. TSD's residential programs offer extracurricular activities, peer interaction, student growth and development, achievement, and more. Current Student Life Director at Knoxville campus, Bethany VanBebber, oversees approximately 78 residential students aged from 6-20.

References

External links