Willie Ross School Launches New Website

June 29, 2011 - The Willie Ross School for the Deaf has launched a totally new website aimed at informing care givers, parents of deaf children, referral sources and public school officials about the school and its approach to educating the deaf and hard of hearing. 

Accessed at www.willierossschool.org, the new site provides information about the school’s dual campus model—its Longmeadow main campus and its partnership campus embedded in the East Longmeadow public school system—and its academic approach, school-to-career programming, outreach services and student life. 

The school has been a leader in mainstreaming its students through its long-term relationship with the East Longmeadow school system. Through the dual-campus model Willie Ross offers an immersion approach, deaf and hard-of-hearing students learning together, and inclusion through academic and community mainstreaming. The new site also offers a link. “Raising a Deaf Child,” provides answers to questions parents of deaf children may have about educational approaches and resources to help parents understand their options in educating their child.

The site also helps visitors understand the school’s integrated approach to communication practiced at the Willie Ross School, which combines sign and spoken language as the language of instruction.  Related services are provided by the communication method best suited to the child and their IEP. 

According to Louis Abbate, President and CEO of the school, “Our new website was designed to help inform both those familiar with education for the deaf and hard of hearing and those who are not. It is a guide not only to the academic and career preparation services we offer but also to the best practices in the field.”

The new site also includes a blog to be rendered on a regular basis by Dr. Abbate, recognized as a national resource on deaf education, about trends in educating deaf children. 

The new web presence for the school that was founded in 1967 is part of a new positioning and communications strategy launched last year by the school in conjunction with Paul Robbins Associates Inc. PRA and senior staff worked with area website design and internet marketing company Citadel Network in designing and launching the new site. 

The Willie Ross School for the Deaf provides a comprehensive educational program stressing academic excellence that focuses on the development of students’ intellectual, social and emotional growth from the early childhood level through high school. Willie Ross serves students at its main campus in Longmeadow and at its partnership campus located in the East Longmeadow Schools. Mainstreaming opportunities are provided at the partnership campus.