ACCREDITATION

MSSD is the demonstration high school of the Clerc Center at Gallaudet University. MSSD is fully accredited by two organizations:

• Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

• Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf

Standards

While mandated by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), our students participate in our bilingual, learner-centered, and technology-driven curriculum while meeting multiple rigorous academic standards, including:

Maryland Common Core Standards – English and Math :  corestandards.org

These are a set of clear college- and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English Language Arts and Mathematics. Each set of standards contains several focus areas, including reading literature and informational texts, writing, language usage, Algebra, modeling, geometry, and statistics and probability. Not limited to English and math, the standards push the students to read complex texts that provide facts and background knowledge in other content areas, including science, technology, social studies, and the arts.

Clerc Center K-12 ASL Content Standards : aslstandards.org

Our bilingual deaf students embrace American Sign Language (ASL) as their first language. Therefore, we use this set of standards that is designed to teach students the knowledge and skills of ASL expressive and receptive signing; the ability to analyze the structures of ASL at all linguistic levels, enhancing comprehension and production of ASL; competency in creating and analyzing ASL texts; and the ability to obtain a greater proficiency in ASL that results in high-order conceptual thinking, critical literacy skills, and more refined analytical skills. Some of the anchor standards are aligned with the Maryland Common Core English Language Arts Standards.

Next Generation Science Standards: nextgenscience.org

With our STEAM courses available for our students, we abide by the Next Generation Science Standards. The set of standards with three structure components–Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts–is different than other science standards because the implemented objectives enable students to learn science by doing science. This has made a major shift in our classroom instruction and student-centered learning.

*These items are being updated as part of our accreditation process, and updates will be posted in Fall 2025.