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I am a retired Director of the Oregon School for the Blind (OSB).  At the May 21 sub-committee of Ways and Means, Rep. Gelser testified that OSB lost it's accreditation.  In a statement to the May 23 Statesman Journal, Sen. Fred Girod listed this loss of accreditation as his first reason for closing OSB.

OSB did not lose it's accreditation, but chose not to renew it because we could see no benefit from being accredited.  It costs thousands of dollars and must be continually renewed.

I've never known of any OSB student who has not received full credit toward graduation,  whether OSB was accredited or not.  All that is needed is for the Director to write a letter to the student's home public school,  listing the name of the class, the content of the class,  the name of the properly certified teacher,  and the number of hours the student attended the class.

OSB is part of the Oregon Department of Education.  If accreditation was so important as to be a reason for it's closure,  you would think that someone from the Oregon Department of Education would have passed on that information to OSB.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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