Special Education Placements
Deibyn
By Mariana Simões Globe Staff, Updated June 14, 2026, 6:00 a.m.
Until age 9, Deibyn Orozco lived in a silent world of his own.
Born deaf in rural Guatemala, Orozco did not have anywhere that could help with his disability, much less teach him sign language. He communicated with his mother in rudimentary ways, sharing the unspoken language of gestures and affection that often exists between a mother and her child.
Orozco went to a local school, but it was not for a child like him. He could not listen to the teacher’s lessons, could not read the books, could not write notes, and could not hear the other children laugh.
“He was lost in this world,” said his mother, Aneida Mauricio, who gave birth to him when she was 14. “He didn’t even know his own name.”
A decade later, and some 3,000 miles from his former home, Orozco stepped up to a podium Friday in Charlestown to receive his high school diploma from the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Every graduation season, there are stories of students who have overcome obstacles. Orozco’s resilience sets him apart.
His parents immigrated to the Boston area because they believed it was a city that could educate a student as unique as their son. The day Orozco stepped into Horace Mann he discovered people like him who taught him how to communicate. They talked with their fingers, palms, faces, and bodies.
“I began understanding the world,” Orozco said in American Sign Language. “Everything opened up.”
Founded in 1869, Horace Mann is the oldest public day school for the deaf in the country. The Boston public school has long served as a beacon for deaf children, including those who immigrate to the United States without knowing sign language.
The school enrolls 78 students, a majority of whom are Black or Latino. They hail from 16 countries, and 13 languages are spoken at home, according to school officials.
A deaf student at Horace Mann has access to “a language rich experience” that helps students become more adaptable and resilient, said Michelle Eisan-Smith, the school’s current leader and first deaf principal.
Schools everywhere face mounting fiscal challenges as enrollment shrinks, both here in Boston and across the country. As part of a special education overhaul, Boston is shuttering two high schools that offer specialized instruction for children with disabilities.
At Horace Mann, enrollment has dropped by more than 40 percent in the last two decades, according to state data. However, parents, special education advocates, and city officials have expressed a commitment to the school.
When Horace Mann’s facilities deteriorated, the school moved to a temporary location in Charlestown, where the city spent $41 million to renovate a building that houses it and another school. The search for Horace Mann’s permanent home continues.
In Guatemala, Orozco struggled because he could not understand the teacher or his classmates. That changed when his family settled in Chelsea and he enrolled at Horace Mann, where first he learned to sign, then to read and write in English.
With time, the boy of small stature with thick dark hair and black-rimmed glasses grew into his own. He wrote for the school newspaper, mentored younger students, and helped lead a hip-hop dance club.
A horror film fanatic who loves to socialize, Orozco enjoys taking the T with his classmates to restaurants. While other teens scroll through their phones, Horace Mann students savor the power of human-to-humancommunication on their trips around Boston, cracking jokes and holding riveting conversations in sign language.
The world may see Orozco’s inability to hear as a disadvantage, but Horace Mann faculty say that his multiple modes of communication are a super power.
Now Orozco grins with a slight smirk, as if he knows something nobody else does. But it was never easy.
In middle school, he struggled with depression because of mounting academic pressure. He got an iPhone and took refuge playing video games. Like many teens, he spent too much time on a screen and his grades slipped.
“Then when I was 16 it hit me,” Orozco said in a speech at a Boston Public Schools awards ceremony. “We had a meeting and I found I had three years left to graduation and I hadn’t made progress.”
He decided to stay an extra year in high school, Orozco said, and he redoubled his efforts to become fluent in sign language and English.
During that additional year, he really “flourished,” said language teacher Zoe Fieldsteel. Orozco is a “beautiful storyteller” and a poet in the making, Fieldsteel said, who “has always been hungry for knowledge.”
Orozco is hopeful about what lies ahead but wary of a future without Horace Mann.
“I’m going to miss my friends and my teachers,” Orozco said, “and this whole social structure that has held me up for so long.”
In a year, he intends to apply to the Rochester Institute for Technology, where he hopes to either study engineering or photography.
For now, Orozco plans to spend more time working his weekend job installing carpets and hardwood floors with his cousin, Wilmer Rivera, to help support his mother and two young siblings.
On Friday, Horace Mann’s hallways filled with parents and students signing and speaking in an array of languages. They were there to honor the school’s three graduates and the entire student body showed up to watch them get their diplomas.
Despite the silence of sign language, the school buzzed with noise. There was a loud embrace when one teacher hugged a graduating senior. Interpreters wandered the school translating for parents in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
When Orozco took to the stage, he received his diploma and several awards, including national recognition for outstanding academic achievement.
After the ceremony, Orozco posed outside for photos with friends and family. He thought about when he was 9 and living in silence. If Orozco could give advice to his 9-year-old self, he would say: “You are going to be able to communicate. Don’t give up.”
“Now I am successful,” Orozco said, “because I kept persevering.”
