Established 1880 Built 1884 Phone +1 605-367-5200 Founded 1880 School type State school | State Aid $3,517,946 Area 2 ha District SD School For The Deaf Added to NRHP 14 June 1981 | |
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Website SDSD's official website Location 1800 E. 10th St., Sioux Falls, South Dakota Architect Dow,Wallace L.; Chapman,John Address 2001 E 8th St, Sioux Falls, SD 57103, USA | ||
South dakota school for the deaf will be closed this july
The South Dakota School for the Deaf (SDSD) is a state-supported school located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota that provides services to meet the educational needs of children who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, or have cochlear implants. SDSD is governed by the South Dakota Board of Regents.
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SDSD was founded in 1880 as the Dakota Territorial School for Deaf Mutes when the area was still part of the Dakota Territory. When South Dakota became a state in 1889, the school was placed under the state's Board of Charities and Corrections and the name changed to its present form. In 1944, voters ratified an amendment to the state constitution which moved SDSD and the South Dakota School for the Blind (now the South Dakota School for the Blind and Visually Impaired) under the care of the South Dakota Board of Regents.
The student population reached a peak of 100-150 students by the 1960s; advances in hearing aid technology made it possible for hard of hearing students to stay in regular classes and various disability-related laws passed between the 1970s and 1990s led to increased placement of deaf students in public school environments rather than sending them to SDSD. The result was a gradual decline to about 50 students by the mid-1990s. This combined with the prevailing attitude of the Regents towards deafness led to the establishment of the current auditory / oral (cochlear implant) program and later, the transfer of both this and the original sign language-based program to neighboring school districts and closure of the main campus in 2011.