[Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind

[T. Joseph Carter]

Full time students?  31.

Served each year in some capacity?  About 400.

Twenty years ago?  I don't know, it was a lot more—but Oregon has 
changed its laws in the interim to forbid placement at the school 
unless there is no other placement possible.

The school is being closed for students that are only allowed to be 
there because there is no other placement possible.

The first argument to close the school was that the buildings needed 
substantial maintenance, including seismic upgrades.  We countered 
this by pointing out that funding for this maintenance has been 
secured time and again, but the Oregon legislature has consistently 
redirected it over the past 20 years to efforts to close or relocate 
the school, rather than maintain it.  Consistently, as in every 
single time.  They dropped that argument.

The next argument was that enrollment was down and the cost per 
student was extremely high.  They argued that Least Restrictive 
Environment forbade placement at the school.  It would save money, 
too!  We gave the correct definition of LRE and pointed out that 
counting costs for 400 and dividing them by 31 is outright deception.  
We also pointed out how much closing the school would cost elsewhere.  
They mostly dropped that argument.

The following argument was an empassioned plea to save these poor 
children from a life of seclusion.  Those poor children came and told 
the legislature that they were not secluded, that they had no other 
chance at the same education anywhere else in Oregon, and that they 
needed this school.  Another argument down.

Finally, the legislature abandoned any pretense of arguing that this 
was "for the sake of the children" because we'd proven it was not.  
They stopped pretending that it would save money, because it would 
not.

The effort to close the school was put forward by Oregon Democrats, 
and they maintain a strong majority in the Oregon legislature.  So 
they crammed it through with little public comment, offering 
minimally required time for an amendment to be published before it 
was voted on (without public comment, of course), and then they 
pulled every shenanigan they could to try and escape public notice, 
since the public almost unanimously opposed this bill.

Joseph


On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 07:18:26AM -0400, Steve P. Deeley wrote:
> How many blind children were currently enrolled in the school in 2008?  
> How many blind students did the school have 20 years ago?
> Steve