State cuts threaten education for deaf, blind in Bay Area

[Miss-Delectable]

State cuts threaten education for deaf, blind in Bay Area | Amy Crawford | Local | San Francisco Examiner

A proposed budget cut for California’s state-funded public schools for the deaf and blind has alarmed advocates, who say the move may hurt California in the long run by diminishing the employment prospects of deaf or blind young people.

“This is one more thing that affects our population devastatingly,” said Bryan Bashin, director of LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, a San Francisco-based organization that provides services for the blind.

Bashin said that unemployment among the blind is about 57 percent.

In his proposed budget for 2012-13, Brown called for cutting funding to the California Schools for the Deaf in Fremont and Riverside and the School for the Blind in Fremont by $1.8 million.

Although the schools serve only a small fraction of the state’s blind and deaf K-12 students, they also provide consulting services to school districts, which may have little expertise in how to educate children who have either of the relatively rare conditions.

“It’s a treasure, a resource that if lost would be devastating,” said Bashin, of the 150-year-old School for the Blind.

Bashin said that the blind and deaf communities would be working together to lobby against the proposed cuts.

“The blind community is very networked,” Bashin said.

Students at risk

800 students at the Schools for the Deaf in Riverside and Fremont
66 students at the School for the Blind in Fremont
$1.8 million proposed cuts to deaf and blind schools
$39 billion total state funds budgeted for education

 

[deafdyke]

66 students at the School for the Blind?!?!?! WOW! That is TINY!!!!! I think they need to revamp blind schools/ blind ed. Like I don't think generally that blind kids need a K-12 segregated enviorment, like they did in the 40's and '60's. BUT, again there's the same problem that blind/low vision kids face, and that's the fact that most mainstream sped isn't very experianced with visual issues. If state law strongly encouraged placement at the school for the blind for early intervention/childhood , for kids who are 50 miles and less away, we'd have a lot less blind kids vegetating in programs like Headstart and general EI. Then maybe a good idea would be to require a kid to spend say fourth or fifth grade at the blind school getting instruction in blind skills....then schools for the blind should acknowledge how difficult middle and high school are, and create a special program for middle and high schoolers where they can live at the school, and take advantage of blindness skill training, but take advantage of schools that would be more experianced with blind/low vision students, and also enjoy the camaraderie of blind/low vision peers. It would also encourage independent living etc.....Damn the specialized schools are SO underutlized. It is good that kids don't HAVE to go there like they did in the old days.....but I really do think that the key to special education is offering a variety of approaches and placements. Like I do think that blind ed really needs to return to Sight Saving classrooms....It scares me to think that deaf ed may be heading towards the same path as blind ed. Did you know before 1974, most schools for the blind were for just blind kids, and they offered a really decent education? Now they are mostly for multihandicapped kids...and yet blind employment and acheivement SUCK!

 

[whatdidyousay!]

My state , Massachusetts just cut funding for school that was for abused and trouble kids. The school helped a lot of kids that would had end going to jail or turning to crimes. If Mitt Romney win the election you'll see a lot more of this happen. He cut funding to a lot mental health centers when he was governor of Massachusetts.

 

[deafdyke]

And the thing is.....cutting and getting rid of "insistutions" isn't going to remove the problems. Closing mental insistutions and cutting mental health did nothing to remove the problems.
When it happens to dhh and blind/low vision kids they sink and fall through the cracks in the mainstream. When it happens with MH, they end up on the streets or in jail.