[blindkid] Question about Student Loan Forgiveness for Parent

[Richard Holloway]

I don't want to jump into the middle of this discussion on the other aspects of the post. I don't have anything useful to offer there, but this one comment below made me take pause:

> When it comes to homeschooling, I live in a very rural area, and I have heard nothing great about our local school systems and their education of the visually impaired.

I would submit that most people on this listserv, and indeed most parents of blind children in all areas (rural or urban) could make a similar statement. (Most, not all.) Especially if there are few, if any similar situations in your area, one never knows what can be done through the school system based only on word of mouth or various anecdotes.

I do confess that i wonder if you have heard bad things about how the schools deal with blind students, or just assume their lack of experience will spell disaster. It sounds as if you are still pretty early in the process of determining your son's education plan. Try and be patient and explore your options.

I don't know your child's situation, but if he is going to be a Braille reader, for example, there is a great deal involved in teaching Braille proficiency. I assume he will need to learn cane travel skills. This takes a great deal of work too. My point is you will likely need services from your school system or through some state agency, no matter if you ultimately home school or use public education. Ultimately some parents find this is all more than one can manage alone. If possible, check with others in your local area through the NOPBC or your state division, if one exists and/or your state or local chapter of the NFB. Apologies for not remembering your specific state if posted already.

Speaking of state agencies, programs such as Babies Can't Wait (here in Georgia) can also provide some useful services and support until your child reaches school age. Have you looked into a similar program for your state?

As kids get older, many (perhaps most) also need many thousands of dollars in equipment to be able to have reasonable access to brailling equipment, embossers, computers, etc. If this equipment is required under the concept of FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education), your school system will have to supply it. It doesn't matter if they have it already or not, they will have to find a way to get certain required equipment for you, and generally the are funds available, or ways to have equipment loaned through other means to the school also exist. Can you gain access to this through other means? Possibly so, but you will likely have more support in the teaching of the use through a school as well. It isn't like picking up a conventional laptop to use these machines in many cases... There is a learning curve. Likewise with adaptive software for conventional computers. (Screen readers, like JAWS, for example.)

There will be need for other things too-- including nearly countless Braille books, including text books, tactile maps... All manor of supplies. Almost certainly you will need lots of braille transcription services. Some books you can order through certain libraries and services, but some may prove rather difficult to acquire without the right system in place. .Save to say this is a very complicated business. I find it overwhelming sometimes just from the standpoint of a parent trying to properly support a blind student attending public school.

May I suggest a couple of things to you?

If you have not, research what is available through various means as far as Braille support, orientation and mobility, etc., and also (if you have not done so) find out what the school can actually do for you. If this is a very rural setting with few if any other blind students and they have no qualified staff, they may simply be compelled to hire out needed services through qualified specialists. They might partner with other school systems or perhaps a state school for the blind or other state agency.

It may seem like a lot to consider, to try and find a way to make public schools offer a way to educate your child, but long-term home schooling is a big thing to attempt as well, and what concerns me most with that is the Braille and O&M aspects of doing so.

I'm not suggesting you cannot do it yourself. I'm sure others here have managed just what you appear to be thinking of, but if I were in your place, I would want to explore all options before I were committed to that path.

I remember when our daughter was born. I felt like I was going to have to adapt the entire world for my child personally. It took me several years to realize most things were already adapted. As parents, my wife and I realized that our job was to find these existing solutions and tweak them to our needs. Reinventing the wheel was generally not needed. It took me several years to figure this out. It took several more years to begin to feel like we had a working system in place. Now we know to try and adjust/adapt existing solutions before we start from scratch.

Does your state have a school for the blind? If so, plan a trip there. Many schools offer resident placement for students of many ages, but I'm not suggesting you need that option. What the school almost certainly can do is give you an idea of the process to educating a blind student through a tour and some discussion. You might learn you live within bussing range. (About 60 miles in our state.) They may have much information to share and many suggestions to make even if you don't want to consider that school as an option. We looked at many public and private schools before we found a good fit.

In our case, we have a daughter with no light perception whom we started off in a private school. After a couple of years in a great learning environment, the situation began to change-- decline actually, as the needs for Braille and O&M also began to become more pronounced. We soon realized that only a well managed plan in a public school setting was going to work for our needs.

We live in a large metro area. Our county has nearly 700,000 residents and we are in a part of the largest metro area in our state (Atlanta, Georgia). I assumed there were many Braille-reading students in our county. Imagine my surprise when we learned recently there are only three Braille-reading students in our entire school system. (All grades, all schools.) We get good services, but not because the schools here have a vast number of Braille students to support. Now in fourth grade, our daughter has been the only blind student in her school since pre-k, so rural or not, being the only blind-, or at least the only Braill- reading student is a pretty common issue for our kids. Fact of the matter is, there aren't a lot of blind people in the general population in most areas. Blindness is a fairly uncommon thing, especially for children. Once grown, our kids end up living in a mostly sighted population as well.

Again, this is no reflection on you personally. I just hope ANY parent of a blind child trying to find the right educational path will explore all possibilities as thoroughly as possible before they rule any of them out. Your local public schools have a legal obligation to proved your child with a Free Appropriate Public Education. Why not talk to them and learn what you are planning to decline before you turn it down?

I expect there are also homeschool support sources and maybe some of those can help with blindness adaptations to consider, but it sounds like you have much time to weigh out your options before you commit yourself long-term to a path, and in fact one can even change paths as we did (from private to public school, in our case, around age 5). We have made many unexpected adjustments since our blind child was born. The best news I can offer about that is it seems to get easier over time.

Sorry for the long post but hopefully it will present some options to explore further.

Best of luck to you,

Richard