RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
tjcarter's comments:
on School for the Blind
You're correct, it's not an option to merge the school with Washington's. As important as the Oregon school is, Washington's school is a lot closer to ideal than Oregon's. Teachers at the Oregon school will be the first to admit this.
Personally, I see Ms. Gelser's comments about trying to rejuvenate OSB as an attempt to save herself from being unelected for her ruthless support and quashing of dissent over closing the school. Her vote has been cast, and it was IN FAVOR OF CLOSURE. It doesn't matter what she says now to make it sound like she thinks that may have been a mistake. Nothing has changed between when she made her vote and now, except that her constituents are promising to see that she loses her legislative seat over this.
I for one have already pledged my support and my time to the campaign of her opponent in the next election, whoever that happens to be. Ms. Gelser has made her bed, and I will ensure that she lies in it.
Mr. Williams and Mr. Kimbrough did a fine job, I think. I particularly want to commend Mr. Williams on his courage to defend his school against the majority of the Oregon political machine. With the tenacity this young man has shown today, Mr. Williams may accomplish any goal to which he sets his mind.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context
on School for the Blind
(Please note that this took multiple comments, and they appear to be in reverse order..)
If the story is much different, however, with a student who can't read print, doesn't know Braille, has little or no math skills, cannot travel independently or perform many of the daily life activities you and I take for granted, and is NOT receiving adequate services because the services do not exist in a rural setting, is the placement least restrictive? Certainly it isn't. In fact, the district is negligent in its duty to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education. I wouldn't want to be the district when that lawsuit gets filed! In such a case, if the needed services simply are not available, the only other placement option in Oregon is the Oregon School for the Blind.
In fact, you don't need a case that extreme for a placement at OSB. Presently, OSB's transition program contains a large number of single year placements. The students receive academic skills in their districts and are sent to OSB for the functional skills the district could not provide to the desired level of competency. Essentially, they got the very basics in the district. Now off to the School for the Blind for a year to actually learn how this stuff is done in an immersive environment. Since the district can't provide that and the educational need to have it exists, the Oregon School for the Blind becomes the legal LRE and the moral responsibility of the district.
Sorry if that is more detail than anybody wanted on the subject, but you'll never hear Ms. Gelser talk about LRE as anything other than the justification for closing the school. That's intellectually dishonest, since LRE is the primary reason for the school to exist. Anyone who's been a part of as many IEP meetings as I have should know it too, and Ms. Gelser reportedly has been part of at least a few.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context
on School for the Blind
The next spot on the continuum is a regional classroom. You could have a county-wide or even cross-county LCVI. I do not know if it is still done, but Riverside County, California used to have this sort of arrangement for students who needed it. It was the equivalent of the LRC, but serving blind people specifically and having all of the specialized equipment blind people use. In terms of how this kind of placement fits into the LRE debate, it depends on geographical distance. The greater the distance, the more restrictive the environment is seen to be, and the greater the justification for it must be. It's a moot point since Oregon has no such classrooms.
The most restrictive environment is a residential program that is not geographically close. Theoretically this would include the Oregon School for the Blind, however there are blind students who have attended the school both during the day only and as residential students from the Salem-Keizer area. For such students, OSB poses somewhere about the same level of restriction as a primary placement in a special education classroom.
Either way, the only way to get to a residential program is for the needs of the student to be such that less restrictive environments cannot adequately serve them. Oregon takes this a step further IMO in spirit violating IDEA by requiring that placement at the Oregon School for the Blind be considered only after every other option has been considered and rejected. IDEA specifies LRE based on needs, not that options may be taken off the table before discussion of what those needs are takes place.
The point is that the closure of the Oregon School for the Blind removes a large portion of the Continuum of Services here in Oregon. In fact, in Oregon, it abolishes the Continuum of Services completely. Oregon has exactly two options for blind students: General education classroom and Oregon School for the Blind.
If a student is functioning well in general education, receiving solid services from a TVI, and gaining the functional and academic skills they need post-graduation, then they are indeed in the Least Restrictive Environment, as defined by the law.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context
on School for the Blind
First, to address the cost. Several students at the school have one on one assistants. Last I checked, one of them had two on one assistants because of his unique case. These costs exist regardless of where these students are placed. The remaining costs are the normal costs associated with educating the 31 students, operating programs that serve nearly 400 other students, paying faculty and staff, and performing what little maintenance of the property the Oregon legislature has permitted.
Second, I draw your attention to my comments above regarding Continuum of Services. The preference is for the Least Restrictive Environment that fits the needs of the student. If those needs can be met in the general education classroom, then that's where the law says they should be placed.
What about the students who cannot be placed in that environment for whatever reason? We have pullout services to Learning Resource Centers and Developmental Learning Centers as part of special education, and for the blind we have pullouts to work with a Teacher of the Visually Impaired. Of course, in rural areas, these pullouts are too few and infrequent to provide the kind of services mandated by the law.
Yet when students in special education have greater needs, we make their placement in LRC or DLC classrooms the primary placement. The students may have some class time outside of these placements, but it becomes more of a "pushin" than a "pullout". Unfortunately, at this point on the continuum, there are rarely enough blind students to justify a Learning Center for the Visually Impaired in the school. This classroom can be in the student's neighborhood school or another school in the geographical district. The latter is seen as more restrictive, but can be chosen over the former if there is justification for doing so.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context
on School for the Blind
This is why the federal law calls for a Continuum of Services, with placement in the Least Restrictive Environment that meets the Educational Needs of the student.
Basically, what you said. =)
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context
on School for the Blind
Idaho's school is now co-located. As predicted, it would have been better to have two separate schools, but the decision's been made and the state cannot afford the additional expense of unmaking it now.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context
on School for the Blind
I can't see this as a placement option, but it would be really cool for an ongoing short-term outreach program. Bring kids from public schools for a week or so as part of community involvement.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context
on School for the Blind
@alisabrewster, no, it wouldn't. The ESD programs are already inadequate in much of the state. If you are in Portland, you might get reasonable services. Salem or Eugene, sure. Florence? Hermiston? Gold Beach? You'll be lucky to receive services at all.
I wonder how many of these legislators are willing to allow their children to have 45 minutes of reading per week? That's not uncommon in Oregon for a blind student learning Braille. The usual method of avoiding that problem? Let's just not teach them Braille! After all, they can listen to books on tape and talking computers, right? There's almost a full generation of largely illiterate blind people out there today who suffer because of that stroke of "genius".
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context
on School for the Blind
I guaranteed Ms. Gelser that that the Oregon School for the Blind would be come accredited in two years if only Oregon's single statute requiring that the Oregon School for the Blind be a last choice placement were removed. Federal law calls for a least restrictive environment that meets a student's educational needs. Oregon statute says that the only way the Oregon School for the Blind is allowed to be considered is when there is no other choice.
Ms. Gelser was not interested in the plan for accreditation within two years.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
view in context
