[blindlaw] Update on Florida School for the Deaf and Blind

[ckrugman at sbcglobal.net]

perhaps a more enlightened approach would be to advocate for your son's 
education at the county level. There are many pros and cons about having 
blind children educated in residential settings as they do not foster full 
socialization with sighted children. The main benefit would be that your son 
would receive Braille instruction that might not be able to be provided by 
your county department of education. Not being familiar with the specifics 
of your county's education department I can't comment on all of the pros and 
cons but the laws generally encourage education in the least restrictive 
environment. I realize that I am probably opening a big can of worms here by 
posting this but I think that in planning for your son's education you need 
to be aware of all options. I also realize that I am showing some of my own 
biases toward forced county and local school districts to do what they are 
supposed to do and that is mainstream and accommodate students.
Chuck Krugman, M.S.W., Paralegal
1237 P Street
Fresno ca 93721
559-266-9237
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Philip Breeze" <pebreeze at gmail.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 11:31 AM
Subject: [blindlaw] Update on Florida School for the Deaf and Blind


> Hello everyone, a few months back I posted an entry concerning my 6 year 
> old
> sons application to The Florida School for the Blind.  I have an update on
> the situation and find it extremely difficult to understand.  The facts 
> are
> as follows:
>
> February 2008 -- I applied for my son to attend FSDB.
> May 2008 -- I received a letter disqualifying my son from attending.
> July 2008 -- I met with the school president and staff, non of whom
> evaluated my son's records.  No person in the meeting could explain the
> reason for refusing him entry other than the evaluators must have seen
> something in his records to disqualify him.  They determined that he was
> Trainable Mentally Handicap and could not answer the question of how they
> determined this.
> October 2008 -- I filed a complaint with Florida Department of Education.
> FDOE determined that FSDB acted unethically and ordered FSDB to show proof
> of findings.  FSDB refused such saying they no longer had his records and
> that we need to reapply.  FDOE also ordered FSDB to refrain from using the
> terminology Trainable Mentally Handicap as it is no longer used in the
> professional world.
>
> Here we are in February of 2009 and FSDB has yet to admit that they used
> prejudice in evaluating my child and will not accept responsibility of 
> such
> even after being ordered by FDOE.  FSDB to this day has never seen my son 
> in
> person.  I contacted several attorney's and learned that FSDB is notorious
> for being sued and spending millions of dollars to prevent children that 
> are
> slow learners from attending.  Yes, my son is developmentally delayed.  He
> was born blind and has very low muscle tone (hypotonia).  FSDB prefers to
> allow enrollment to those visually impaired children that are most easily
> educated and to accept deaf children.  They *DO NOT WANT* young totally
> blind children.  This could possibly impact their bragging rights to
> success.
>
> I have come to the realization the FSDB, a State of Florida public school
> discriminates against young blind children.  They violate every aspect of
> IDEA and No Child Left behind.  They accept federal assistance and private
> donations.  They have a budget of $40 million dollars and only 700
> children.  They retain a high dollar attorney from Atlanta to keep 
> children
> out.  This is most blatant case of fraud, waste and abuse I have ever 
> seen.
> They excuse themselves by saying that they do not have the money nor man
> power to educate children that have multiple disabilities and those 
> children
> have other options.  My options are to stay locally and have my child
> educated by a county that has few blind children and no experience with
> teaching them or to leave the state to attend a school elsewhere.
>
> I never in my mind thought that I would have to fight to get my child
> accepted to a school for blind children.  These people work for the 
> Governor
> of Florida, the FSDB board is appointed by Governor Crist.  There in
> something severely wrong with an organization whose primary mission is to
> educate blind children and they refuse to do so.
>
> My thoughts and prayers go out to all of you that continue to suffer this
> sort of discrimination in our society.
>
> Philip Breeze
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