Deaf in Washington State

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Anyone have any feedback on what it's like to be deaf/hh in Washington State? I'm trying to put together some simple feedback for a paper, so just give me some random thoughts.....

Are services good? What about education? Are you glad to live there for some reason versus other places, or does the lack of services make you wish for something better? Is it better to live one place versus another? Anything along these lines would be great. Thanks.
John Forshey

p.s. you can see my other post under Deaf Education about whether residential or mainstream schools are best.
Thanks again for your input.
 
We have Washington State School for the Deaf in Vancouver, Washington where I live, but I wouldn't recommend that school if you feel the education is more important than the social.

Seattle have a lot of good services for the deaf compare to Vancouver.

Seattle is the top and Vancouver is the second, but I am not sure if you are looking for things for yourself or maybe you have children. If it is just for you, then Vancouver is not that bad because it's near Portland where there's a lot of deafies there and have some interpreters coming to Vancouver from Portland. I raised mainstream school since the 3rd grade when my parents put me in the mainstream because the WSD was about to put me in 3rd grade for another year due to my age and the Vancouver School District have pretty good services for the deaf as well as Evergreen School District.

That's all I know :) The choice is up to ya.
 
Anyone have any feedback on what it's like to be deaf/hh in Washington State? I'm trying to put together some simple feedback for a paper, so just give me some random thoughts.....

Are services good? What about education? Are you glad to live there for some reason versus other places, or does the lack of services make you wish for something better? Is it better to live one place versus another? Anything along these lines would be great. Thanks.
John Forshey

p.s. you can see my other post under Deaf Education about whether residential or mainstream schools are best.
Thanks again for your input.

Living in Washington State as a Deaf person is liberating as Washington state is far more progressive than the traditional midwestern/southern states due to the activism that we have here.

As for services--exactly what kind of services are we talking about? I need a little more specifics.

Now for the Deaf social life--Seattle, Vancouver, and Spokane have thriving Deaf communities. However I find Seattle to be a little bit more mental stimulating due to the higher number of deaf individuals that have college degrees. Whereas in Spokane--the number of deaf individuals with college degrees are a lot smaller compared to Seattle. However the deaf community in Spokane is a lot more friendlier and less cliquish than Seattle as well as the affordability for a deaf family to buy a house is better than in Seattle. The deaf community in Spokane is a little more on the conservative side than it's Seattle counterpart. The deaf community in Vancouver is tied in with Portland, Oregon since they are literally across the river from one another.

Paging Byrdie...your services are needed here.

:lol:
 
Living in Washington State as a Deaf person is liberating as Washington state is far more progressive than the traditional midwestern/southern states due to the activism that we have here.

As for services--exactly what kind of services are we talking about? I need a little more specifics.

Now for the Deaf social life--Seattle, Vancouver, and Spokane have thriving Deaf communities. However I find Seattle to be a little bit more mental stimulating due to the higher number of deaf individuals that have college degrees. Whereas in Spokane--the number of deaf individuals with college degrees are a lot smaller compared to Seattle. However the deaf community in Spokane is a lot more friendlier and less cliquish than Seattle as well as the affordability for a deaf family to buy a house is better than in Seattle. The deaf community in Spokane is a little more on the conservative side than it's Seattle counterpart. The deaf community in Vancouver is tied in with Portland, Oregon since they are literally across the river from one another.



:lol:

:lol: I was expecting you to reply here too, I forgot about Spokane hehe.

That's what I thought so as well.
 
We have Washington State School for the Deaf in Vancouver, Washington where I live, but I wouldn't recommend that school if you feel the education is more important than the social.

Seattle have a lot of good services for the deaf compare to Vancouver.

Seattle is the top and Vancouver is the second, but I am not sure if you are looking for things for yourself or maybe you have children. If it is just for you, then Vancouver is not that bad because it's near Portland where there's a lot of deafies there and have some interpreters coming to Vancouver from Portland. I raised mainstream school since the 3rd grade when my parents put me in the mainstream because the WSD was about to put me in 3rd grade for another year due to my age and the Vancouver School District have pretty good services for the deaf as well as Evergreen School District.

That's all I know :) The choice is up to ya.

What? Why is there deaf school in Vancouver, WA if there is Deaf Oregon school in Salem as the distance is closer? They ought take place in Olympia to make fair distance in state.
 
What? Why is there deaf school in Vancouver, WA if there is Deaf Oregon school in Salem as the distance is closer? They ought take place in Olympia to make fair distance in state.

2 seperate states.
 
It doesn't make sense when WSD is too close to Oregon while Salem is 60 miles south of Portland. I think it would have been better in Seattle area rather than in Vancouver, WA. I think I heard a story the reason why...they didn't find a large piece of land to establish a deaf school so they picked Vancouver, WA. I don't think that story makes sense because there's plenty of big lands long time ago *shrugs*
 
2 seperate states.

No, you misunderstood. Vancouver is just right next to Oregon state! Whatever deaf from far such as northeast area have to go that far southwest. I find is ridiculous!

Oh wait, that's liberal who thought of! Lame.
 
It doesn't make sense when WSD is too close to Oregon while Salem is 60 miles south of Portland. I think it would have been better in Seattle area rather than in Vancouver, WA. I think I heard a story the reason why...they didn't find a large piece of land to establish a deaf school so they picked Vancouver, WA. I don't think that story makes sense because there's plenty of big lands long time ago *shrugs*

I disagree, it should be in Olympia in first place where it should be closer to capital, easy to deal with it.

Why... look at Texas School for Deaf is in Austin! New Mexico School for Deaf is in Santa Fe!
 
It doesn't make sense when WSD is too close to Oregon while Salem is 60 miles south of Portland. I think it would have been better in Seattle area rather than in Vancouver, WA. I think I heard a story the reason why...they didn't find a large piece of land to establish a deaf school so they picked Vancouver, WA. I don't think that story makes sense because there's plenty of big lands long time ago *shrugs*

*See below for history of WSD*

No, you misunderstood. Vancouver is just right next to Oregon state! Whatever deaf from far such as northeast area have to go that far southwest. I find is ridiculous!

Oh wait, that's liberal who thought of! Lame.

It wasn't a liberal. :roll:

I disagree, it should be in Olympia in first place where it should be closer to capital, easy to deal with it.

Why... look at Texas School for Deaf is in Austin! New Mexico School for Deaf is in Santa Fe!

*See the History of WSD-- and why it was established where it was*

WSD was established in 1886 when Washington was a territory. Most of the people that were migrating to Washington were migrating to western Washington due to the gold rush in the Alaska fields. Thus is why the larger populations of Deaf and Blind people were in western Washington than eastern Washington.

Vancouver got selected due to it's close proximity to Portland OR., because it was also teamed with the Blind school and the "feeble minded". The Deaf school was with tied in together with the other two. It was not until after 1889 when Washington became a state that the state school for the Deaf could separate itself from the Blind school and the "feeble minded".

The "feeble minded" got sent to an institute in Medical Lake, Washington.

When the the territorial government was making decision of where to locate what school and where--Seattle got University of Washington, Olympia was decided as the capitol, Pullman got WSU, and the state schools for the Blind and the Deaf ended up in Vancouver with the State school for the Deaf getting acres of land overlooking the Columbia river (beautiful sight!).

Anyone to blame--no--just how things were first set up by the territorial government when they were establishing the state.
 
What? Why is there deaf school in Vancouver, WA if there is Deaf Oregon school in Salem as the distance is closer? They ought take place in Olympia to make fair distance in state.

Well it's not bad, WSD and OSD have very good relationship than WSD have with Idaho. They play the sports against each other more often. I find it fun to visit OSD and curious what their school is like when I was in WSD and even when I was in mainstream schools. I know a lot of deafies from OSD and WSD both, only difference is that I know WSD more than OSD.

Also OSD have very similar issues as WSD, like not enough students, or budgets, or stricter rules, etc.

Also students can't go across to different state for different schools. So the deafies will go to WSD in Vancouver anyway, unless it's moved to different location in same state or lose its own entire deaf school.

It doesn't make sense when WSD is too close to Oregon while Salem is 60 miles south of Portland. I think it would have been better in Seattle area rather than in Vancouver, WA. I think I heard a story the reason why...they didn't find a large piece of land to establish a deaf school so they picked Vancouver, WA. I don't think that story makes sense because there's plenty of big lands long time ago *shrugs*

I heard they did fought to take over the army's building in Seattle awhile ago, but fail. I am not sure why..

No, you misunderstood. Vancouver is just right next to Oregon state! Whatever deaf from far such as northeast area have to go that far southwest. I find is ridiculous!

Oh wait, that's liberal who thought of! Lame.

I disagree, it should be in Olympia in first place where it should be closer to capital, easy to deal with it.

Why... look at Texas School for Deaf is in Austin! New Mexico School for Deaf is in Santa Fe!

Not all of states have deaf school in the capitals. Your state is very huge and it take a long time for students to go over to the central. Washington is not that big, anyway, I am not sure if I understand your point is.
 
*See below for history of WSD*



It wasn't a liberal. :roll:

*See the History of WSD-- and why it was established where it was*

WSD was established in 1886 when Washington was a territory. Most of the people that were migrating to Washington were migrating to western Washington due to the gold rush in the Alaska fields. Thus is why the larger populations of Deaf and Blind people were in western Washington than eastern Washington.

Vancouver got selected due to it's close proximity to Portland OR., because it was also teamed with the Blind school and the "feeble minded". The Deaf school was with tied in together with the other two. It was not until after 1889 when Washington became a state that the state school for the Deaf could separate itself from the Blind school and the "feeble minded".

The "feeble minded" got sent to an institute in Medical Lake, Washington.

When the the territorial government was making decision of where to locate what school and where--Seattle got University of Washington, Olympia was decided as the capitol, Pullman got WSU, and the state schools for the Blind and the Deaf ended up in Vancouver with the State school for the Deaf getting acres of land overlooking the Columbia river (beautiful sight!).

Anyone to blame--no--just how things were first set up by the territorial government when they were establishing the state.

I love the history! Also the WSD area was the first settlement of Vancouver, Washington.

Glad that you brought that up :D
 
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