[Nfbofnc] Fw: [nfbwatlk] Oregon legislature ensures closure ofschool for the blind (Oregonian 6-10-2009)

Sat Jun 13 12:38:49 UTC 2009

Albert, Thanks for sharing this. It's sad.
Lusi Radford
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Albert Sanchez" <albertsanchez at suddenlink.net>
To: "NFB of North Carolina List" <nfbofnc at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 3:49 AM
Subject: [Nfbofnc] Fw: [nfbwatlk] Oregon legislature ensures closure 
ofschool for the blind (Oregonian 6-10-2009)


> Hi List,
> Here is an article about the closing of the Oregon School f/t Blind, 
> posted for your information, A.S.
> Al's Piano Tuning & Repair
> 215 John Avenue
> Greenville, NC 27858-4113
> 252-757-3023
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> To: <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 4:40 PM
> Subject: [nfbwatlk] Oregon legislature ensures closure of school for the 
> blind (Oregonian 6-10-2009)
>
>
>>
>>
>> Breaking News Impact - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com
>> Vote closes Oregon School for the Blind
>> Posted by Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian June 10, 2009 11:59AM
>> [http://blog.oregonlive.com/news_impact/2009/06/large_OSBdorm.jpg]<http://blog.oregonlive.com/news_impact/2009/06/OSBdorm.jpg>Thomas 
>> Boyd/The OregonianA student climbs the stairs to his dorm room at the 
>> Oregon School for the Blind in Salem.
>>
>> The Oregon Senate sealed the fate of the state's 135-year-old school for 
>> the blind Wednesday, voting 20-8 to close the Salem boarding school this 
>> summer and return its students to their local schools.
>>
>> The House had already voted to close the school, and Gov. Ted Kulongoski 
>> says he will sign the decision into law.
>>
>> The 24 students who would have returned to the Oregon School for the 
>> Blind this fall, most of whom are ages 16 to 20, will instead attend 
>> their local public schools. The bill says they must receive 
>> "substantially equivalent" services as those they received at the state 
>> school.
>>
>> More than $3 million that would otherwise have been spent operating the 
>> boarding school will be used to help educate those 24 students and to 
>> improve services to the other 800 blind and visually impaired students 
>> already being served in their local schools.
>>
>> House Education Chairwoman Rep. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, an advocate for 
>> disabled students, spearheaded efforts to close the school.
>>
>> She said the students should be educated in their hometowns and live with 
>> their families. She also decried the lack of core academic classes at the 
>> state school, which lost its accreditation in the early 1990s. And she 
>> said the high cost per student -- more than $125,000 a year --  
>> represented a lack of equity between blind students at the boarding 
>> school and those educated in hometown schools.
>>
>> The school's physical plant, which includes a dorm, a gym and nine other 
>> buildings, is dilapidated, and the state hasn't spent the millions it 
>> would take to bring it up to code. Enrollment at the school has dropped 
>> to 32 students from its high of 118 in 1964, before the federal 
>> government mandated that disabled students be served in the least 
>> restrictive setting possible.
>>
>> "Closing this school wrenches at your heart ... but I believe in the 
>> bottom of my heart that mainstreaming is best for the visually impaired," 
>> said Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton.
>>
>> Parents, teachers and members of groups that advocate for the blind 
>> decried the decision to close the school. They testified how visually 
>> impaired students have been poorly served in local schools that 
>> areill-equipped to help them -- stories that Gelser said are true.
>>
>> Visually impaired students have such specialized learning needs that few 
>> school districts can meet their needs, in large part because they lack 
>> trained teachers, champions of the school say. Education at the Salem 
>> school stretched more than 12 hours a day, with students learning to 
>> navigate with a cane and master life skills such as cooking and laundry 
>> after classes ended at 3 p.m.
>>
>> Most of the students who attend Oregon School for the Blind will be the 
>> only blind or visually impaired student in their local school.
>>
>> Kathy O'Malley met recently with officials in the North Clackamas School 
>> District to discuss their plans to educate her 17-year-old daughter, 
>> Kelsey, who had a miserable experience at Clackamas High before 
>> transferring to the Oregon School for the Blind two years ago.
>>
>> O'Malley says she doesn't trust their assurances that things will be 
>> better this time for Kelsey, who has cognitive delays, limited speech and 
>> a genetic disorder that caused her to lose her peripheral vision 
>> beginning when she was 8.
>>
>> O'Malley says she will push for Kelsey to attend the state school for the 
>> blind in Washington, where space is limited, or in Idaho. The district 
>> would have to pay for her education at the Idaho school plus weekly plane 
>> trips home from the school to match the weekends she spends at home now, 
>> she said.
>>
>> Clackamas High officials want to place her in a special education 
>> classroom with a teacher who has never taught a visually impaired student 
>> and where the other students all can see fine, O'Malley says. They say 
>> the teacher will get more coaching and support from an expert teacher of 
>> the visually impaired, thanks to the $3 million in new funding.
>>
>> But O'Malley said she and other parents with children at the School for 
>> the Blind find it "obvious that, contrary to how everybody in Salem 
>> thinks this is miraculously going to work out, that the districts remain 
>> clueless.
>>
>> "Our kids will get lost in the shuffle. They will be sent back to the 
>> same school districts that were not able to provide the services for 
>> them," she said.
>>
>> -- Betsy Hammond; 
>> betsyhammond at news.oregonian.com<mailto:betsyhammond at news.oregonian.com>
>>
>> (c)2009 Oregon Live LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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