[Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind

Fri Jun 12 13:26:28 UTC 2009

I see your point.  Do you think the trend will reverse?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 10:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind


> Steve:
>
> With respect, you are wrong. In fact, according to statistics of the
> Washington State School for the Blind, when all costs are taken into
> account, there isn't much difference between costs of providing a FAPE
> for a blind student in public schools (assuming the program there is
> adequate) and that provided at the School for the Blind.
>
> I will agree, however, that a school for the blind can no longer rely
> just upon residential students; the Washington School has an extensive
> outreach program to assist public school districts with their blind
> children and has made itself into an intensive blindness-skills
> education facility with the ideal outcome that blind students go there
> to obtain the skills (blindness, social, etc.) they need and then
> (assuming their own school district has adequate provisions) they go
> back to their home districts.
>
> So the role of schools for the blind may be changing but schools for the
> blind themselves are still quite viable and necessary, especially when
> (as in Oregon) legislators are unwilling to fund the special ed and
> related services for blind children in their own districts adequately.
>
> Mike Freeman
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Steve P. Deeley" <stevep.deeley at insightbb.com>
> To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:54 AM
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind
>
>
> You are maintaining a complete campus for  31 students.  There is
> something
> known as cost efficiency.  I believe the days for schools for the blind
> are
> just about over.  In the 1960's, the Kentucky School for the Blind had a
> census of 150 or more.  Now, there are very few blind students on the
> campus.  In the day, KSB had one of the most respected wrestling teams
> in
> the state of Kentucky.  Those days seem to be gone, sadly.
>
> Steve
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "T. Joseph Carter" <carter.tjoseph at gmail.com>
> To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:39 AM
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind
>
>
>> 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
>>
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>
>
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