Parents/Staff

Parent involvement is essential to the education of special needs students. Family support services, as well as home visits, are provided by Cleary School’s Social Worker and Parent Educator. At Cleary, from the time parents express interest in the program, they are supported in their important role in the education of their child. Parents attend the Committee on Special Education (CSE)/Committee on Preschool Special Education (CPSE) meetings with their home school district to approve the Individual Education Plan (IEP) for their child.

Cleary supports parents by providing weekly parent education meetings with workshops centering on the educational and emotional needs of parents and their children who are deaf. American Sign Language (ASL) classes are offered on a weekly basis. A fathers’ group meets occasionally to discuss important issues and to give support in their special role.

There is an active Parent Association that provides opportunities for open communication between home and school. Parents are encouraged to meet the teachers and to attend and/or assist in activities for the children such as Field Day, Science Fair, School Play, Family Days, Deaf Awareness Programs, as well as any workshops offered to the Deaf Community. A parent newsletter, published quarterly by parents and staff, keeps parents informed about school events, individual student accomplishments and community happenings.

After school activities are offered to students from Cleary, their hearing siblings and other children who are Deaf in the community. Some of these activities include: holiday parties, family bowling, ice cream socials, Boy/Girl Scouts and family picnics.

Parent meetings are held weekly during the day and once a month at night. Grandparents are also welcome at all parent meetings. Educational speakers present at the monthly night meetings. In addition, parent training workshops are scheduled throughout the year on Saturday mornings.

Cleary School has several certified speech therapists that work with the children and their parents from birth to 21.

In the Parent-Infant Program, the speech therapist works closely with the parents to help answer the many questions they may have about hearing loss, hearing aids, cochlear implants, audiological testing and how hearing loss affects speech and language development. The parents are shown how to use and troubleshoot hearing aid devices and how to carry-over speech and language goals and activities at home. The speech therapist works with the child twice a week for thirty minutes and team-teaches with the Parent-Infant Program teacher for playgroup sessions.

The children in the Auditory-Oral Preschool Program receive individual auditory-based speech and language therapy five times a week for thirty-minute sessions. In addition, the speech therapists work closely with the classroom teachers and conduct daily speech push-in sessions allowing for newly acquired skills taught in individual speech sessions to be practiced in a larger group setting. The goal of auditory-based speech and language therapy is to develop speech and language in a natural progression through listening. Special care is taken to ensure the best acoustical environment in the speech rooms as well as the classrooms. Sound field systems are used in all classrooms. There is on-going communication between the parents and the therapists via a daily speech notebook, phone conversations, meetings and parent observations. Speech and Language tests are administered annually and the results are shared with the parents as well as presented at the child’s CPSE/CSE meeting along with the speech and language goals.

The children in the elementary program receive individual speech therapy three times a week for thirty-minute sessions. Speech therapy focuses on developing skills in the areas of speech production, speechreading (lipreading), auditory training and language. Speech and language tests are administered annually and the results are shared with the parents as well as presented at the child’s CSE meeting along with the speech and language goals.

The children in the Secondary Program have the option of continuing speech and language therapy. Therapy continues to focus on developing speech production, speechreading, auditory and language skills. The children receive speech therapy two to three times a week for forty minutes.

The following support services are provided by Cleary School for the Deaf to meet the needs of each individual student:

Audiologist	Medical Consultants
Coordinator of Pupil Personnel Services	Nurse
Consultants for the Visually Impaired	Occupational Therapist
Educational Evaluator	Parent Educator
Guidance Counselors	Perceptual Motor Training Personnel
Interpreters - Sign Language	Physical Therapist
Interpreters of Other Languages as needed	Psychologist
Job Coaches	Social Worker
Job Developer	Speech and Language Therapists
Learning Disabilities Teacher	Transition Teacher
Tutors	ASL Teacher

At the present time, students are enrolled in Cleary School for the Deaf from a variety of school districts in Suffolk County. Students travel from as far away as Montauk Point to the east and Huntington-* to the west. Transportation to and from school, to either the elementary campus or the secondary program, is provided by the student’s school district. Some districts opt to use the BOCES II Regional Transportation Program. Others send their own bus or use private contractors. At the Secondary Program, late buses and job related transportation are also provided by most school districts. Transportation for the three and four year olds is provided by Cleary through private bus companies. These students are bused separately from the general population. They arrive at school at the same time as the elementary students. Families enrolled in the parent-infant program transport themselves; however, when necessary, Cleary provides taxi service to families who do not drive or have access to a car. In addition, Cleary leases three vans for use by teachers for field trips. Al bus transportation is Door-to-Door.