[Blindtlk] Oregon votes to close school for the blind

[trishs]

The powers that be, will get it, not if but when, blindness 
effects them directly, be it themselves or a loved one.  What's 
the statistic with Diabetes alone being prevalent in this 
society, let alone the countless other causes?

> ----- Original Message -----
>From: "David Evans" <drevans at bellsouth.net
>To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org
>Date sent: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:42:26 -0400
>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