[Nfbv-announce] 2014 Virginia General Assembly Success: Registry of Blind Virginians Eliminated and Continued Progress on Literacy assessments for Blind & Low Vision Students

[Tracy Soforenko]

Hi Virginia Federationists,

 

This was a very good year for blind Virginians in the Virginia General
Assembly.

In our 2014 Legislative Agenda, we focused on two areas:

 

a)      Eliminate the Registry of Blind Virginians - I am pleased to share
that the Registry of blind Virginians maintained by DBVI has been
eliminated. HB 664 passed the House in January and the Senate in February.
Support was unanimous for Eliminating the Registry of Blind Virginians.

 

b)       Literacy Assessment for Blind Students  that is research based and
provides objective results- Very few bills pass in their first year. We
introduced identical bills in the House and Senate. After a series of
adjustments to address concerns raised in committees, our adjusted bills
proceeded. In the House, the bill passed the Elementary and Secondary
Education Committee and was referred to the House appropriations committee
and tabled due to concerns about the $200,000 in funding required for
developing a web site and training for teaching teachers how to conduct
objective assessments. The identical bill passed the Senate Education and
Health, Senate Finance and the entire senate unanimously. It was then passed
to the  House education committee and passed the Education committee
unanimously, and then died again in House Appropriations.

 

We can be proud of the work we completed together in the 2014 Virginia
Legislative Session.

 

When you meet legislators throughout the Commonwealth as they campaign for
the 2014 Election, share how important valid literacy assessments are for
blind and low vision students. It is important that they know our commitment
continues past the legislative session.

 

If you have ideas you would like us to consider, please bring them to our
attention.

 

Tracy Soforenko 

Second Vice President, NFB of Virginia

202 285-4595

Tracy.soforenko at gmail.com