This article was originally published in the Idaho Capital Sun
For Paula Mason, the new executive director of the Idaho Educational Services for the Deaf and the Blind, deaf education is personal.
At 4 years old, Mason’s father sustained a head injury that left him with profound hearing loss. The accident, however, did not stop Mason’s father from hitchhiking from Pennsylvania to Wyoming. Eventually opening a business, he raised his family in Gooding, Idaho — a city that the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind also calls home.
“He was a hard worker and became a successful business owner,” said Mason, who has worked in deaf and blind education in Idaho for more than 25 years. “I guess in a weird roundabout way, it led me to this.”
Mason was appointed as IESDB’s interim director in April 2025, after long-time executive director Brian Darcy departed the agency for the New York Institute for Special Education. Mason’s position was made permanent in April of this year, following a year-long search.
The new director is intent on strengthening the services IESDB offers — including finding more avenues to prepare Idaho’s deaf and blind population for the workforce. But Mason’s goals are complicated by a reliance on state funding, a source that is increasingly limited after the Idaho Legislature instituted nearly across-the-board cuts for the 2026 and 2027 fiscal years.
Mason most recently served as director of outreach, where she worked to identify deaf and blind students and their families across Idaho’s school districts and connect them with IESDB’s resources. Mason has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, a master’s degree in education of the deaf/hard of hearing and a specialist degree in educational leadership from Idaho State University.
Darcy, who worked with Mason for more than 15 years, praised her efforts to increase the sphere of IESDB’s services — nearly tripling the number of students the agency served during her time as director of outreach.
“She did a great job in working with local school districts, working with various family service development infant toddler programs in order to create those partnerships,” Darcy said. “That got us referrals, got us into the homes, and got us educating students, finding students who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or low vision, or combination.”
New director strives to boost students’ scores and career opportunities
In addition to coordinating the services that support about 2,900 deaf and blind students across the state, one of Mason’s main responsibilities is helping lead the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind — a residential academy run by IESDB.
Just over 100 students attend the school in Gooding, the same city where Mason grew up and attended high school. The Gooding School District and the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind have been long-time collaborators, according to Mason.
“When I was in school, we had students that would come and take classes with us, so their interpreter would come with them, or if they were a blind student, they had the support they needed to take classes with us,” said Mason. “We were always immersed together.”
For Mason, boosting reading and math scores of students at the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind is a top priority.
Students can be referred to the school at any point in the year, meaning that they may arrive with differing levels of educational experience or familiarity with accessibility technology. State standards also do not account for the different experiences of deaf and blind students.
“There’s not a curriculum that’s been developed for a student who is blind. There’s not a specific curriculum for a student who is deaf or hard of hearing,” Mason said.
As a result, Mason and her team have to adapt existing curriculums and look for other metrics to measure student growth.
Mason is also focused on increasing real-life job experiences for deaf and blind students.
“Data shows that if a student who’s deaf or hard of hearing or blind, low-vision has a successful work experience before they graduate high school their chance of being employed, having sustainable employment, competitive employment, is much more,” she said.
IESDB previously collaborated with the Idaho Commission for the Blind and Idaho Vocational Rehabilitation to run workplace readiness programs and place students in real-life work experiences over the summer. For the past two years, however, budget constraints at Idaho Vocational Rehabilitation have drastically reduced IESDB’s summer offerings.
While the money from Idaho Vocational Rehabilitation looks unlikely to return, Mason remains positive about alternatives for funding the programs.
“We have a team, so we’ll continue to work together to look for grants that might help us,” she said.
A lack of funding is a familiar issue for Mason, who said 96% of the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind’s budget is spent on personnel, making flexibility to support other programs at the school limited.
“We’d have to go to the Legislature to work on getting an increase for things like our paras or our cottage staff who have specialized skills or communication skills or experience,” said Mason. “With the state of our finances, you know, the financial state of the whole state of Idaho — I don’t see that happening right away.”
Still, Mason is excited about the future of deaf and blind education in Idaho.
“If we give them the access they need and they get the education they need — sky’s the limit, you know, they can do anything,” said Mason.
Abigail Gerstein is an intern at the Idaho Capital Sun.
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.
