Deaf Education
Brazos Valley Regional Day School for the Deaf
The Brazos Valley Regional Day School for the Deaf Program provides a free and appropriate education to deaf and hard of hearing students from birth through age 21.
A Shared Service Arrangement exists between member school districts spread over an eight county service area. Bryan ISD serves as the fiscal agent.
Students are served within their home districts or on one of the BVRDSD site campuses in Bryan ISD. Home districts provide transportation for deaf and hard of hearing students attending schools in Bryan.
The Brazos Valley Regional Day School offers a variety of services:
Parent-Infant Program
Weekly services are provided to parents of newly identified deaf or hard of hearing children birth through three years of age in their home. Services are coordinated with Early Childhood Intervention and focus on helping parents understand hearing loss, language development and communication.
Itinerant Teacher Program
Services are provided to students on a pullout basis to provide language development therapy on the deaf education site campuses in BISD and member school district campuses.
Self-contained Deaf Education Classroom
Pre-K to grade 12 classrooms are designed to offer all required academic and some elective classes. Interpreter services are provided students who qualify and attend regular education classes.
Communication Specialist Program
The communication specialist program was designed to help parents of newly identified deaf children develop basic to fluent sign language skills. By teaching the parents of children birth through three years how to effectively communicate with their children, we are able to improve overall language development and academic achievement.
Special Programs
A Parent’s Lending Library, Parent & Community Sign Language Classes and parent meetings are provided.
Project Invest
A grant of nearly one million dollars to provide distance learning and mobile labs was awarded to BVRDSD, Texas School for the Deaf and Lamar University. These three locations are linked for the purpose of studying ways to use technology to broaden the educational scope of deaf and hard of hearing children. The labs allow deaf children to take virtual field trips, meet and socialize with other deaf children in Austin, and receive mentoring from Lamar university graduate and doctoral students.
Awards and Recognitions
1997 Promising Practices winner: March 1997 American Annals for the Deaf published research from our Bilingual-Bicultural program study.
Students may be referred to the Regional Day School for the Deaf Program by their home district’s special education department, early Childhood Intervention, parents, or the medical community.
An individual Education plan (IEP) or Individual family Service Plan (IFSP) meeting will determine placement and/or appropriate services for each student once eligibility is established.
Contact Information
Connie Ferguson, Supervisor Deaf Education
Phone: 209-2891
Email:
connief@bryanisd.org
Address:
Brazos Valley Regional Day School for the Deaf
Hammond Oliver Annex, Room 212
1307 Memorial Drive
Bryan, TX 77802