[Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind

Fri Jun 12 22:14:37 UTC 2009

Yes, I hope the same thing, Mike, because I was in the Washington State 
School for the Blind for one year, and I have to say that my education 
suffered because they catered too much to the multiply handicapped, although 
I have heard that they are getting better about educating the kids who are 
only blind.  The thing is, I had a lot of friends in summer school too, but 
I also had a roommate with whom I was friends, and my mom started pointing 
out, after a while, that I was starting to act like her, picking up her 
iabits, and it wasn't a good thing, and so I stopped acting like that, 
wanting to be thought of as a competent, smart blind person who didn't do 
those silly things, and, maybe it's a shame to say this, because it may come 
off a little shallow, but I stopped hanging around with her for that reason.
Sarah
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Sivill" <mike.sivill at viewplus.com>
To: "'Blind Talk Mailing List'" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 9:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind


>I agree with you Sarah. I was in mainstream school for my entire education
> and had a horrible social experience but the blind school was not an 
> option
> academically at all. Although the mainstream teachers were not much better
> (luckily I had a good VI teacher ) but I would have had amuch better
> experience academically with teachers trained to teach a blind student and 
> a
> better social experience with other blind kids. I always had lots of 
> friends
> at the blind summer camps and events and I believe that the people who say
> kids have to attend mainstream schools in order to learn to act normal are
> mostly sighted and don't know what they're talking about. Other blind kids
> are just as harsh about telling someone who has blindisms that they are
> being idiotic while sighted peers usually just figure all blind people do
> that type of thing and they shouldn't be mean about it.
> I really hope that this closure of OSB spreads and helps start a real 
> change
> in the blind school's role, from being a dumping ground for multi-disabled
> and troubled blind kids.
> Mike
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Sarah Baughn
> Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 7:55 AM
> To: Blind Talk Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind
>
> Steve, that's my thought as well.  You see, there are so many
> multihandicapped students in the schools for the blind these days that 
> those
>
> of us who are only blind suffer in terms of our education.
> Sarah
> ----- 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 2:52 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
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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