[blindkid] School placement question

Sun Dec 14 21:05:09 UTC 2008

Karen:

I would submit that while your question is a good one, it indicates 
confusion between apples and oranges. Anything I say here will be a 
generalization and generalizations are always dangerous and, to some 
extent, inaccurate. However, at the risk of irritating some with 
children with multiple disabilities (and bear in mind that I have such a 
child), I would indicate that the purpose of placement of Downs Syndrome 
kids and some CP kids in the classroom is for social purposes, or, put 
another way, it's an attempt to make such kids feel less "different". 
Actually, I question whether use of full-time aides and such really is 
effective but that's a debate for another forum.

By contrast, what we are trying to do with blind kids is teach specific 
skills, i.e., braille and the use of the long white cane among other 
skills. In other words, we are trying to teach literacy and mobility 
with the expectation that once these are mastered, blind kids can take 
their places in the regular school unles special circumstances obtain. 
At least for the first few years, this requires a teacher of the blind 
and visually impaired and, one hopes, aides or transcribers who are also 
fluent in braille. Yet there aren't enough of these to go around. Also, 
although learning braille isn't that hard, it is a specialized and 
different skill from learning print and so unless a school district has 
funds to burn (and few do these days), it really is more efficient to 
set up a resource room somewhere and pull the blind kids out for a 
couple periods a day to learn braille and mobility and daily living 
skills if the parents aren't on the ball with these (and you'd be 
surprised how many are not). Ideally, there would be enough TVI's 
(teachers of the visually impaired) and aides that each school with a 
blind child could have its own resource room where the child could be 
taught blindness skills. But this is seldom the case.

The alternative is for the parents to learn the blindness skills and 
help the child succeed in his/her neighborhood school. And you can, of 
course, demand that the child be taught in the neighborhood school; that 
is your right. But it may be an uphill battle. And I will admit that 
setting up one special school in a city for handicapped children isn't 
my idea of a workable solution to the problem and I'd almost rather send 
my kid to a school for the blind than doto a public school where all the 
handicapped kids go. In fact, my child *is* at the Washington State 
School for the Blind.

Mike Freeman

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve & Karen Leinart" <s.leinart at comcast.net>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] School placement question

I'm following this thread with great interest, as we also face school
placement issues for our own son.  I'm curious about something, and
rather than being contrary, I'm truly trying to understand the reasoning
behind the "resource room" or "resource school" sort of placement for
blind children, and why we should embrace that placement option.  At
first glance, our school district seems to embrace the concept of LRE...
children with Downs Syndrome, CP, and many other needs are routinely
placed in their home school, with full time aides, pull-out therapies,
etc.  But children that are VI/blind or HOH/deaf are routinely placed in
schools with resource rooms rather than their neighborhood schools.
Why?  I'm really trying to understand this.  To me it seems to further
the prejudice against VI/blind people (or HOH/deaf) by indicating that
their "disability" is so severe, so unique that it can only be
appropriately handled at a special school.  The child grows up with
that, and the students that they would otherwise go to school with also
know it.... they see the kid in the neighborhood, but know he has to go
to a special school because he's blind.  When they grow up, how willing
will those kids be to hire a blind person?  I'm sorry, I'm struggling to
understand why this is okay.  I understand that you have to pick your
battles in life, and that it's best not to battle with the school every
step of the way.  Perhaps I'm tilting at windmills, but isn't this a
battle worth fighting?

Karen Leinart

Carol Castellano wrote:
> Hi Stephanie,
>
> I guess you have also visited the classroom in your neighborhood
> school that Kendra would be in and felt that you could picture her
> there.  I like the idea of the neighborhood school, too.  It seems
> that the problem you will be facing is this:  if you succeed in
> getting Kendra placed in her neighborhood school, will the district do
> what will be necessary for her to succeed?  Might they just do the
> minimum and wait for her to fail so that they can prove to you that
> she belongs in the school with the resource room?  From their
> perspective all the work has already been done and things are all
> ready in the other setting.  To them, a decision to place Kendra in
> another school will seem unreasonable.  Very difficult indeed.
>
> Carol
>
> At 10:48 AM 12/12/2008, you wrote:
>> I should have stated that my husband and I did visit the resource 
>> room
>> school twice, in two different school years.  We did the same with 
>> the
>> other school we want her to attend.  Kendra's TVI was with us for the
>> most recent visits to both schools as well.  For confidentiality
>> reasons, I did not want to disclose everything but I will quote some
>> sections from a letter I wrote to the head of TVIs after our last 
>> visit
>> to the resource room school:
>>
>> 1.  We did not observe any Braille signage in the building.  Doors 
>> were
>> not labelled with the Braille room numbers, nor with the teachers'
>> names.  In order for children to develop independence in orientation 
>> and
>> mobility, it is helpful for them to have such information.
>>
>> 2.  There were no Braille books in the kindergarten classroom we
>> observed but there was a shelf of print books.  When I questioned the
>> TVI about this, I was told that the children could walk to the 
>> resource
>> room for a Braille book.  Blind children should have the same access 
>> to
>> reading materials as the sighted children have.
>>
>> 3.  The children did not initially have a Perkins brailler in their
>> classroom.  When it was commented upon, one was brought into the 
>> room.
>> Blind children should have the same access to writing materials as 
>> the
>> sighted children have.
>>
>> 4.  The two blind/visually impaired children we observed were seated
>> separately from the sighted students in the classroom.  Whether this 
>> was
>> by their choice or not, they did not seem to be integrated into the
>> classroom activities.  We observed them working with a separate 
>> teacher
>> at separate tasks.
>>
>> 5.  The most upsetting thing we observed at our last visit was a
>> para-pro placing a printed worksheet in front of a blind child, 
>> telling
>> her "here is a fence, color it in" and then placing a crayon in her 
>> hand
>> and putting the child's hand over the picture.
>>
>> When we visited (SCHOOL X) two years ago, we brought up many of these
>> concerns (lack of Braille signage and lack of Braille classroom 
>> books,
>> in particular).  It was disheartening on our second visit to see that
>> none of these issues had been addressed.  These were not surprise 
>> visits
>> so our conclusion was that the things we observed were typical of how
>> things are run at that school.  I would be happy to talk with you,
>> either in person or on the phone, if there is any other information I
>> can provide about our visits.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> blindkid mailing list
>> blindkid at nfbnet.org
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> blindkid:
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/blindchildren%40verizon.net
>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> blindkid mailing list
> blindkid at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> blindkid:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/s.leinart%40comcast.net
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
> Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.9.17/1846 - Release Date: 
> 12/12/2008 6:59 PM
>
>
_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
blindkid:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/k7uij%40panix.com