Welcome to the Willie Ross School for the Deaf. Our school was founded in 1967 by parents who sought to establish an innovative educational program for their child. Their focus was on academic excellence and educational achievement. They also wished to have a program that would demonstrate the benefits of deaf and hard-of-hearing children learning alongside hearing children.

The community at the Willie Ross School for the Deaf is a proud heir to that legacy. We are constantly striving to maintain an instructional environment that meets the needs of our students. The Willie Ross School for the Deaf offers an array of instructional environments and communication methods that address the individual needs of each of our students.

In educating a deaf child we recognize that deaf children learn differently than hearing children. WRSD offers a range of instructional settings. We recognize the value of both a center based and integrated campus.

We have developed a dual-campus program that recognizes the historic contribution of the center-based campus and the need for mainstreaming opportunities. Our Partnership Campus, located within the East Longmeadow Public Schools, allows Willie Ross students to be selectively mainstreamed with hearing peers in their grade. Our Longmeadow Campus provides an immersion setting for students.

We encourage you to visit our Longmeadow main campus and our Partnership Campus, embedded in the East Longmeadow public school system, and learn more about our Outreach Division and related service offerings. The communications approaches used by the Willie Ross School for the Deaf, as well as the beliefs of our founding parents, recognize the value and unique needs of each of our students. We offer choices to meet those needs leading to educational success, one child at a time