[Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind

Fri Jun 12 13:27:40 UTC 2009

I agree with you.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Evans" <drevans at bellsouth.net>
To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind


>
> Dear Steve,
>
> I know one thing,the Public school systems are not getting the job done
> either.
> I have seen I.E.P.s where the schools did everything and used every excuse
> to avoid teaching Braille to a student.
> I have seen children with certain eye conditions, that medically you know
> that they are going to lose more vision, too the point of having no usable
> vision in their adulthood, and they are still denied Braille.
> We can see the train of vision loss coming down the tracks and the schools
> do nothing.  Any child who has RP for example, should be learning Braille,
> no matter how much vision they have in elementary school.  We know that 
> they
> are not going to have that same amount of vision when they get older.
> Why do we not prepare our kids for their whole life and not just the 
> moment.
> I have seen the parent's in denial and with the best of hopes on their 
> lips
> that their child's vision will not get worst.
> I understand denial as I hid from my blindness for many years and it was 
> not
> until I got involved in the NFB that I pulled my head out of the sand.
> I fooled many people for many years about the full extent of my vision 
> loss,
> but the one I fooled the most was myself.  I was afraid of what other 
> people
> would think, how they might react and treat me and I was ashamed of being
> Blind as if I had done something terrible.
> The person that got hurt the most was me.  The denial held me back from
> doing the things that would have helped me the most.
> The residential schools still have a place in our world and it is some
> place that allot of blind students still need to help them.
> I know that many states offer a "summer school" program for students, 
> where
> they can come for a few weeks and sharpen skills and learn new things with
> other Blind students.  This is conducted at many Blind schools and camps
> around the country.  The NFB youth Slam and Rocket On programs are just a
> couple of these condensed programs.
> I just know that there is dirty work afoot in Oregon and as someone who 
> was
> misunderstood once said to the authorities in power, "Forgive them Father
> for they know not what they do."
>
> David Evans, NFBF
> ----- 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 5:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind
>
>
>> David:  Don't you think that the best and brightest blind students were
>> leaving schools for the blind during the past 30 years?  Are schools for
>> the
>> blind still able to accomplish their missions with all of the multi
>> disabled
>> students now attending the schools??  I'm not certain how effective the
>> schools can be under the present circumstances.
>>
>> Steve
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "David Evans" <drevans at bellsouth.net>
>> To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 5:04 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Dear All,
>>>
>>> There are some facts that need to be stressed here.
>>> Back before ww-2, most blind children were sent to a residential school,
>>> where they were educated and taught all of the skills of blindness
>>> including
>>> some kind of trade skills.
>>> Regardless of the amount of vision they had, they were taught Braille as
>>> well as print , if they had any vision at all and something like 84% of
>>> all
>>> blind students were literate in Braille, print or both.
>>> After WW-2, children were mainstreamed into the Public schools, mostly
>>> because some people felt that they would have better social skills and
>>> because more parents wanted to keep their children closer to home 
>>> instead
>>> of
>>> sending them off to a remote school some where.
>>> There are always some blind children who have the need to attend a
>>> residential school instead of getting what they can from the Public
>>> school
>>> system, especially Deaf-Blind and those with additional disabilities as
>>> examples.
>>> Since the advent of mainstreaming into the Public schools, literacy in
>>> general and Braille literacy specifically have declined tremendously.
>>> Today
>>> Braille literacy is only 8 to 9% and general literacy is not as high as
>>> it
>>> was, even with the increase in the numbers of blind children alive 
>>> today.
>>> Along with mainstreaming, into the Public schools, real education
>>> declined
>>> sharply and so has employment for the Blind.  Employment has always been
>>> difficult at best for the Blind, but the lack of teachers who could 
>>> teach
>>> Braille and understood how to work with blind students has been
>>> systematically eliminated and discouraged in the Public schools and in
>>> many
>>> of the rehab agencies because the people in charge held low expectations
>>> of
>>> the blind and had the attitude," they are blind and can't do anything
>>> anyway
>>> so why bother teaching them."
>>> Public school districts generally lump all of their "special needs"
>>> students
>>> together with an overworked and underserved teacher who is given poor or
>>> no
>>> resources to provide the specialized training that is needed for their
>>> students who have a wide variety of disabilities and the ones that act 
>>> up
>>> and are the most disrupted usually get most of their attention.
>>> The teaching of Braille has been discouraged by every fantasy 
>>> imaginable.
>>> I was fed the same old lines myself, for years, that Braille was "old
>>> fashion," "bulky and hard to learn and that all the new technologies 
>>> were
>>> going to replace it.  I bought into this idea until I was exposed to the
>>> outstanding examples I found in the NFB.  It changed my belief and
>>> attitudes
>>> and at the age of 49, I taught myself Braille with the help of the 
>>> Hadley
>>> School for the Blind.  I learned and was using Grade One Braille for all
>>> my
>>> personal written communication in just 3 weeks and learned how to use a
>>> slate and stylist, which I carry everywhere with me now.  "
>>> I make good use of technology, but I have also learned that as long as
>>> the
>>> sighted still use paper and pen to write things down and carry them 
>>> with
>>> them; there will be a place for Braille in the hands of the Blind.
>>> It is a well known axiom among the Blind that 96% of all working Blind
>>> People know and use Braille in their work and their lives.
>>> Something else that the residential schools did was they taught
>>> employable
>>> skills to the Blind, i,e, chair caning, piano tuning, sewing, 
>>> weaving,and
>>> other such manual skills that the Blind could always sell as personal
>>> services.
>>> The Blind of China invented the first trade unions back 2,000 years
>>> before
>>> the birth of Christ to set prices, standards and to regulate Blind 
>>> trades
>>> that included basket weaving, pottery, massage and even prostitution,
>>> which
>>> were considered common Blind trades back then.
>>> The parents of Blind children have had to fight alone with the Public
>>> schools systems to get them to provide the education and help that their
>>> children need and have to keep fighting the entire time their child is 
>>> in
>>> school for what the Law says is their Right to a Free and Equal 
>>> Education
>>> that evidence shows they are not getting in Public school.
>>> They use excuses such as "well, the child has too much vision to be
>>> taught
>>> Braille, inspire of the fact that maybe the child has RP and will lose
>>> their
>>> ability to read or even see print as a young adult, as happened to me.
>>>
>>> As a former resident of Roseburg Oregon, now living in Florida, I can 
>>> say
>>> that the legislature of the State of Oregon does not care about the 
>>> lives
>>> of
>>> Blind children and likely has political motives behind their vote to
>>> close
>>> the Oregon School for the Blind.
>>> They have wanted that land for some time and de-funding the school is 
>>> the
>>> way they intend to kill it and steal the land and the birth right of all
>>> Blind  children in their State.  This whole thing Bothers me, the whole
>>> situation stinks and I hope the smell comes back to haunt each and every
>>> one
>>> of these legislators who voted to close this school.
>>> Shame on them and a pox on their House for doing this unnecessary and
>>> despicable act of murdering the School for the Blind of Oregon.
>>>
>>> David Evans, NFBF
>>> Nuclear/Aerospace Materials Engineer
>>> Builder  of the Lunar Rovers and the IF-117 Stealth Fighter
>>> Legally blind since age 16 due to RP.
>>> Without a good education they doom blind children to a life of idealness
>>> and
>>> little potential.
>>> Lucky for me, I got a good education and have done many things people
>>> thought impossible.
>>> ----- 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 11:54 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
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> blindtlk mailing list
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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