[blindkid] Schools for the Blind vs. Education in Public SchoolSystems

[Mike Freeman]

Kim:

Bravo for your daughter!

It depends upon which state one lives in whether one can initialy choose 
to send one's blind child to a school for the blind. Here in Washington, 
parents have the right to choose WSSB as their initial placement (unlike 
many other states). Different strokes for different folks!

Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kim Cunningham" <kim at gulfimagesphoto.com>
To: " (for parents of blind children)NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 3:29 AM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Schools for the Blind vs. Education in Public 
SchoolSystems


I live in Texas and I know that it must be an ARD committee decision for 
your child to attend the School for the Blind. I can remember being fed 
up with the school district at one point and we really considered 
selling our home and moving to Austin so my daughter could attend TSBVI. 
I thought that we could move to Austin, walk into the school for the 
blind, and register my daughter to attend. I soon found out that it is 
not my choice, but the ARD committee. The school district must prove 
they are UNABLE to provide an education for your child. Our school for 
the blind pushes for the kids to stay in their home district. Also, I 
think that the largest population in TSBVI is children who have multiple 
impairments, so there isn't a large population of academic kids at the 
school. I'm not sure if this is a trend for all state schools or not. At 
the end of the day, my daughter decided to stay in the public school 
system. Now that she is entering her senior
 year in high school, I can see that we made the right decision to stay 
in the public school system even though our daughter is playing catch-up 
on her blindness skills. By staying in public school she has learned to 
advocate for her needs, learned to socialize with her sighted friends, 
and has taken part in numerous extracurricular activities that she 
wouldn't have had at the school for the blind.
Kim Cunningham


--- On Tue, 6/16/09, dlambert at aristotle.net <dlambert at aristotle.net> 
wrote:


From: dlambert at aristotle.net <dlambert at aristotle.net>
Subject: [blindkid] Schools for the Blind vs. Education in Public School 
Systems
To: blindkid at nfbnet.org
Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2009, 2:39 PM


Hi everyone:

Almost 10 days until convention. I'm very much excited about coming, 
especially since I haven't
been in two years.

But I wanted to pose a question that could possibly lead to some 
research later on.

In determine what type of education you would receive, were you given an 
opportunity to provide
input as to whether a school for the blind was a good option vs. an 
education in a public school
system. What were your experience in which ever educational setting you 
ended up in? Looking
back, what would you have changed or wanted to have happen?

Any input would be great. I'll provide my input publicly later on, but 
just wanted to get a feel
for the range of experiences people may have.

Thanks

Denna Lambert

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