The Tennessee School for the Deaf is a state-operated residential and day school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students ranging from pre-kindergarten to grade 12. It is located in Knoxville

Knoxville, Tennessee

Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

 within the historic Island Home Park

Island Home Park

Island Home Park is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located in the southeastern part of the city along the Tennessee River. Developed as a streetcar suburb in the early 1900s, the neighborhood retains most of its original houses and streetscapes, and is home to the city's largest...

 neighborhood.

The school was established in 1844 as the Tennessee Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. The first students were enrolled in 1845.

The Tennessee School for the Deaf is a part of the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association

Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association is an organization which administers junior and senior high school sporting events in Tennessee.-Description:...

. It fields high school sports teams in football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

, basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

, track and field

Track and field

Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...

, cross-country running, volleyball

Volleyball

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

, and swimming

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

, which compete against public school teams as well as teams from other schools for the deaf. Cheerleading

Cheerleading

Cheerleading is a physical activity, sometimes a competitive sport, based on organized routines, usually ranging from one to three minutes, which contain the components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games or to participate...

is also included in the athletic program.