[blindkid] Urgent: please sign this petition to help a blindkid!

Sat Nov 10 18:03:40 UTC 2012

Yes, please forward. This topic got buried in my inbox and i am just now
seeing some of your responses.
Thank you,
Beth Koenig
On Oct 29, 2012 8:01 PM, "Richard Holloway" <rholloway at gopbc.org> wrote:

> This sounds like a bad situation and I wish only the best toward getting
> this child proper services. Not intending to derail this discussion at all,
> but I don't understand how the child is about to be too old to attend this
> school. Is it just for younger kids? When I think of a school for the
> blind, I'm thinking k-12 or something similar.
>
> I hope this is solved quickly, but surely the are proper services
> available through some school for the blind for a child of ANY age there,
> no?
>
> What keeps jumping at me is the apparent assumption that this child should
> be schooled with children with developmental delays, while it sounds like
> he has no diagnosis to suggest he himself is similarly delayed. I would
> challenge any school to produce evidence that students from the blind
> population with no additional diagnoses are more likely to be
> developmentally delayed than the population in general. That simply isn't
> true.
>
> All this comes back to FAPE (free appropriate public education) under
> section 504, where the school will be hard pressed to justify it is
> "appropriate" to place a developmentally typical child in a classroom with
> apparently all other kids being developmentally delayed to the point of
> being nonverbal, or even if they were nonverbal for other reasons (perhaps
> they are deaf or otherwise speech impaired and the issues are not entirely
> cognitive). No matter what, the last thing I would want to do is surround a
> child who has little or no vision with a bunch of kids who cannot speak.
> The visually impaired child will find himself in a particularly
> disadvantage position do to the lack of information available to him from
> his classmates. Obviously, if anything, blind kids need EXTRA auditory
> information.
>
> Are we missing some information? Or are they actually claiming this is the
> appropriate placement without having preformed an appropriate supporting
> assessment and getting a proper diagnosis? If they have don't that, I
> suspect that they may have placed themselves in a fairly unstable position
> legally, if it turns out that legal action should have to be taken to
> resolve this.
>
> Hopefully it will not come to that. There's one other approach that may
> prove useful. There's always the local TV approach. If the school is being
> terribly stubborn and the family wished to take this route and feels
> confident this is what they want to push for, it may well be that a TV crew
> and a bit of air time may encourage some more cooperative thought on the
> school's part. Simply put, it doesn't look good for a school or school
> district (etc.) to appear to be mistreating a little blind kid. Can they
> defend themselves on camera? Because if they decline to interview they will
> automatically appear to be in the wrong as well. No school or district
> wants to look bad to the community... Maybe that is worth some thought?
>
> Good Luck!
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Oct 29, 2012, at 7:26 PM, Beth Koenig <bethko at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> http://www.thepetitionsite.com/641/695/309/support-sending-nathan-to-preschool-school-for-the-blind/
> > That is the direct link.
> > Beth Koenig
> > bethko at gmail.com
> > (714) 699-DEAF (3323)
> > Director of Deaf Blind Services
> > Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center
> > 1525 Durant Street 303
> > Santa Ana, CA 92706
> > http://www.deafadvocacy.org
> > Health, safety, and productivity are the cornerstones of independence.
> > At the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center we provide the training and
> > services necessary for the deaf and disabled to achieve equality and
> > independence in all areas of life.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 3:42 PM, melissa R green <graduate56 at juno.com>
> wrote:
> >> the link took me to a bad URL.
> >> Do you have another link?
> >>
> >>
> >> Melissa and Pj
> >> Facebook: Melissa R Green
> >> Nobody is in charge of your happiness except you!
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Beth Koenig" <bethko at gmail.com>
> >> To: "Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
> >> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> >> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 12:40 PM
> >> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Urgent: please sign this petition to help a
> >> blindkid!
> >>
> >>
> >> Not spam we are just desperate. Nathan is a real actual child being
> >> denied to go to Blind Children's Learning Center preschool. And yes I
> >> know my writing is awful that's why I don't normally write. We are
> >> using the same petition site as Care2.org uses for their petitions, in
> >> fact I think we might be listed on care2. We need help.
> >> Thanks,
> >> Beth Koenig
> >> bethko at gmail.com
> >> (714) 699-DEAF (3323)
> >> Director of Deaf Blind Services
> >> Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center
> >> 1525 Durant Street 303
> >> Santa Ana, CA 92706
> >> http://www.deafadvocacy.org
> >> Health, safety, and productivity are the cornerstones of independence.
> >> At the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center we provide the training and
> >> services necessary for the deaf and disabled to achieve equality and
> >> independence in all areas of life.
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 7:26 AM, Peter Donahue <pdonahue2 at satx.rr.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>> Good morning Beth and everyone,
> >>>
> >>>    This smells like spam to me. Sign at your own risk.
> >>>
> >>> Peter Donahue
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>> From: "Beth Koenig" <bethko at gmail.com>
> >>> To: "Beth Koenig" <bethko at gmail.com>
> >>> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 12:11 AM
> >>> Subject: [blindkid] Urgent: please sign this petition to help a blind
> kid!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I am forwarding this petition at the request of the parents, please
> excuse
> >>> the cross posting.
> >>>
> >>> Click to view this email in a
> >>> browser<
> http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/999455/fb8e0d0ade/289385751/f4b9a7f060/
> >
> >>>  [image: whiteboard_top.jpg]   [image: spacer.gif]  [image: spacer.gif]
> >>> Support Sending Nathan to the Preschool School for the Blind!
> >>>     Hi Supporter,
> >>>
> >>> Nathan is a blind four year old. We are working with Nathan''s family
> to
> >>> help make sure that he receives the training that he needs to succeed
> in
> >>> school and grow up to be a competent adult. Nathan has every hope of
> being
> >>> able to be mainstreamed. However, in order to give him the foundation
> to
> >>> succeed he first needs to learn the adaptive techniques of the blind.
> He
> >>> also has to learn things like how to learn over a bowl, make friends,
> and
> >>> so many other things that we take for granted every day.
> >>>
> >>> Please go sign this
> >>> petition<
> http://cts.vresp.com/c/?OrangeCountyDeafAdvo/fb8e0d0ade/f4b9a7f060/03005f538c
> >to
> >>> send Nathan to the Preschool to the Blind so he can get the best
> >>> foundation possible.
> >>>
> >>> *Click Here to
> >>> Sign<
> http://cts.vresp.com/c/?OrangeCountyDeafAdvo/fb8e0d0ade/f4b9a7f060/8cebc8056c
> >
> >>> *
> >>>
> >>> Thank you,
> >>>
> >>> Beth Koenig
> >>> Executive Director
> >>> Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center
> >>>
> >>>    [image: note_top.gif]
> >>> [image: Picture of young Nathan]
> >>>   [image: note_bottom.gif]   [image: spacer.gif]   [image:
> >>> spacer.gif]  [image:
> >>> spacer.gif]   [image: whiteboard_bottom.jpg]
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> blindkid mailing list
> >>> blindkid at nfbnet.org
> >>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
> >>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
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> >>>
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> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>
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> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
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> >>
> >>
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> >
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