History
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| Our first director, Hattie Harrell. | Our founder, Paul Boley with Rose Tucker and our first graduating class ("Babs" Boley, Judy Glenn, and Ellen Hamaker), June 1960. |
Tucker-Maxon (then Maxon Oral) was established in 1947 in the home of Margaret and Paul Boley. A Harvard-trained attorney, Mr. Boley dreamed of a small school in Portland where is daughter, Barbara Ann ("Babs") and other deaf children could learn to speak. He remodeled a bedroom in his own house into our first classroom and secured financial commitments from local business owners.
Since 1947, Tucker-Maxon has led the way in teaching children who are deaf to talk.
Today we celebrate 60 years of service to children who are deaf or hard of hearing. In the words of our executive director, Steve Noyce, "our sole ambition is to turn the founding parents' vision for Tucker-Maxon into a reality" by producing graduates for whom "deafness is no barrier to achievment or communication."
Historical Milestones
1947 |
Tucker-Maxon was established in the home of Margaret and Paul Boley. Alice Maxon was the first teacher. |
1953 |
Our first classroom building, Tucker Hall, was opened to 18 students. |
1965 |
Our second classroom building, Smith-Bauder Hall, was opened. |
1972 |
Our Mainstream Program began. |
1985 |
We established the world's first school-based children's cochlear implant center in conjunction with the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles. |
1988 |
The Alexander Graham Bell Association published a book detailing our conversational development program, Blueprint for Developing Conversational Competence. |
1990 |
Tucker-Maxon was named Program of the Year by the International Organization for Education of the Hearing-Impaired. Five Tucker-Maxon staff members wrote Listening to Learn, A Handbook for Parents, which was puclished by the Alexander Graham Bell Association. |
1992 |
We initiated a model school program providing real-time captioning for students attending junior and senior high school. This program was later expanded to provide service to younger students with hearing loss attending neighborhood schools. |
1997 |
Celebrating our 50th year, we established the International Center for Technology in Oral Education, whose mission is to develop and disseminate new computer applications for the education of children who are deaf. |
2000 |
We established collaborative classrooms in which children with typical hearing and children with hearing loss learn together. These classes are taught by a teacher of the deaf and a general educator. |
Did you know...
that a world-renowned architect designed Tucker-Maxon's main building, Tucker Hall?
Read more>>