NORTHAMPTON — Preschool and K-5 students at Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech will relocate from the 45 Round Hill Road campus to Jackson Street School in September as part of an effort to provide more inclusive programming, while early intervention services for younger children move to an entirely virtual format this summer.

The changes at Clarke, which will maintain the middle school programming for students in grades 6-8 at Hampshire Regional Middle School in Westhampton, though, don’t signify that the school is shuttering its Northampton location, despite rumors to the contrary, said Rachelle Ferrelli, chief communications officer for Clarke.

“To confirm, Clarke has no plans to end operations in Northampton,” Ferrelli said.

Clarke, which was founded on Round Hill in 1867, has campuses in Boston, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida, with speech-language pathologists and audiologists teaching children who are deaf or hard of hearing the listening, learning and speaking skills they require to thrive alongside peers with typical hearing. In the 1990s, the Northampton campus, where Grace Goodhue Coolidge, the future First Lady, once taught, was scaled back as the new campuses opened.

In Northampton, the Clarke Hearing Center will remain open to provide audiological services to the Pioneer Valley community and to the students and schools in western Massachusetts served by Clarke, with in-person and virtual listening and spoken language services to children who are deaf or hard of hearing. These services include early intervention, preschool and early childhood, K-8 and mainstream.

The move to Jackson Street

The move to Jackson Street School is prompted by providing increased opportunities for inclusion for students with hearing loss using listening and spoken language. This follows what Clarke officials call a “comprehensive and conscientious process” that lasted over a year to thoroughly investigate potential local partnerships. Already, Clarke’s students, aside from preschoolers, have participated in shared activities at Jackson Street two times per week during this school year.

With this move, the students will continue to follow the same curriculum, but with the added benefit of inclusion within a mainstream school community, Ferrelli said.

The other change coming is to early intervention services, becoming teleservices starting next month. That means the listening and spoken language services for children ages birth through 3 will transition from in-person services. But families with young children who are deaf or hard of hearing will get the same level of early intervention support remotely that they have had in person.

“The Visit Teleservices Program offers evidence-based, comprehensive care, with the same customized caregiver-coaching model we use in our Birth to Age Three Program, and the added benefits of flexible scheduling and opportunities to include additional family members and caregivers,” reads information supplied by Ferrelli.

Some families can receive partial or full financial aid based on their income and insurance, and school and district reimbursement may also be available.

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