The Central North Carolina School for the Deaf will close at the end of the school year, state officials announced Tuesday.
The decision ends a year of speculation about the school's future. Declining enrollment doomed the 25-year-old residential school in northeast Guilford County, one of three state schools for the deaf. Central School serves deaf and hearing-impaired students in a 19-county area from Winston-Salem to Durham.Officials of the Department of Health and Human Services said the site was no longer viable as a school for the deaf and will be converted into a school for children with behavioral, emotional and neurological problems.
``The school will remain open until the end of the year,' said Hank Widmer, Central School's acting director. ``We're working on transitioning the students to their local school system or to one of the two other schools for the deaf in the state.'
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North Carolina has larger schools for the deaf in Morganton and Wilson.
Widmer said the school's 50-plus staff members, including nine teachers, will get assistance in finding new jobs, either in mainstream schools or the other schools for the deaf in the state.
A state emphasis on mainstreaming deaf children led to the school's slow demise.
In the late 1970s, more than 1,000 students attended the state's deaf schools, in large part because of a sharp increase in childhood deafness caused by a rubella outbreak.
However, Central School's enrollment has declined for the past decade, falling to 29 students - 11 residential and 18 daytime - this year.
State Health and Human Services Department officials have been encouraging deaf students to enroll in traditional public schools.
``There are more services available to deaf and hearing-impaired students in public schools now than there used to be,' Widmer said.
Fay Agar, superintendent for the Division of Early Intervention and Education for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, said with the rubella outbreak long over and more services in the public schools, Central School is no longer needed.
``We have these services for residential programs in two other parts of the state. We also have options in the regular school system,' she said. ``There's really no need for a third school to do that.'
David Bruton, the former secretary of Heath and Human Services, proposed closing Central School last April and consolidating its services into the two remaining schools for the deaf. Parents fought off that move, but it soon became apparent the reprieve was temporary.
Central School did not accept any new students for the 2000-01 school year because the school's future was in doubt. Widmer's predecessor, Susan Sien, resigned in July to take a job in Texas. She cited frustration with the state's effort to shrink enrollment as a reason for her departure.
Many parents decided to leave before or during the school year.
Even Tina Moser, a Central School parent and one of its most vocal advocates, took her daughter, Taylor, out of the school in December.
Taylor, attended Central School from the time she was 18 months old until midway through sixth-grade. At that time her teacher took a medical leave and the school could not hire a permanent replacement. Moser reluctantly moved her daughter, the school's only sixth-grader, into a regular public school in January.
``I didn't want to leave, but it was either drop her down into fifth grade or put her in a public school,' Moser said. ``It's just a shame. These kids will lose their community and their friends or they'll have to go to school three hours from home.'
At the end of the school year, the Whitaker School in Butner and Wright School in Durham will move to the Central School campus.
Whitaker School is a residential treatment program for teens with complex behavioral and neurological problems. The program serves 24 teenagers.
Wright School is a residential program for children ages six to 13 with behavioral and emotional problems. The program is capable of serving up to 24 students.\ \ Contact Bruce Buchanan at 373-7078 or bbuchanan@news-record.com
