Original Research by School Decision on Bi-county Sp Ed-hi Ms
Bi-County Special Education Cooperative's middle school for students with hearing impairments, located in Sterling, Illinois, is no longer operational. The school has closed.
This was a specialized facility serving a single grade band—middle school students—who were deaf or hard of hearing. As a special education school operated by a cooperative rather than a traditional district, it existed to consolidate resources and programming across multiple counties for a population requiring intensive, specialized support that individual districts could not always provide alone.
No enrollment data, demographic information, state assessment results, or other current performance metrics are available, consistent with the school's closed status. Sterling itself, the city where the school was located, is a small industrial and commercial hub along the Rock River in north-central Illinois. The city has historically been a manufacturing center and remains anchored by employers in production, healthcare, and retail. A major riverfront redevelopment initiative launched in 2026 is reshaping the downtown and waterfront with new parks, housing, and adaptive reuse of historic industrial buildings.
For families in the area with a child who is deaf or hard of hearing and requires middle-school services, enrollment would now route through other special education cooperatives or through the district of residence. A parent seeking such services in this region would want to contact Bi-County Special Education Cooperative directly to learn about where students are currently served and what options exist for specialized deaf education programming.
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