In 1929, Margaret S. Sterck began teaching students first out of Grace Church and later out of her home on Van Buren Street after noticing that deaf children from Delaware had to be educated out-of-state because no deaf schools existed in Delaware. She taught until 1945, when state regulations required that deaf children be taught in public schools. Some students were sent to specialized deaf programs in Delaware public schools while others were enrolled in the
Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (PSD) in Philadelphia. The state began gathering funding and planning out what would later be called the Margaret S. Sterck School for the Hearing Impaired, which opened in 1969. In 1995, the school was renamed the Delaware School for the Deaf. Construction of the $43 million new building began in 2009 after two years of delays in getting the government to release the funding. DSD moved into its new building, located on the same campus, in 2011 after more than forty years in the former Sterck School building. The new building has an auditorium, athletic facilities, and a gymnasium as well as boarding facilities, which can accommodate 36 students. There is also an early childhood center on campus. ==Student life==