Yes, we ask for your support now because the tax person cometh and your gift to DRO is tax-deductible.

But much more importantly, we make the "ask" because so many more Oregonians with disabilities are hurting right now, and it is only with advocacy that they can secure their income, housing, health care and support services.  It is only with advocacy that they can remain safe from harm.

Best wishes for a new year of recovery for all,

Bob Joondeph
Executive Director

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The plan to close Oregon's School for the Blind illustrates the alternative worlds of Special Education in Oregon. One is an imaginary world populated  by the Oregon Department of Education and those advocating for closure. The other is the real world the rest of us live in.

All people with disabilities are better served and have happier lives in their own communities. No one  needs to live with institutional care. That said, it is not progress to move unwilling people from a setting deemed politically incorrect into a community setting unless real supports are in place. These are human beings we are dealing with. Not budgets, not strategic plan goals and not an empty box on a to-do list. And community education supports for hundreds of blind and visually impaired children are most definitely not in place. Nor are they going to be. To think otherwise is just wishful imaginings.

I know a young man who is blind and deaf. For years his able mother struggled with all of her considerable might to find appropriate services in a Washington County school district. That district, like all districts, could not begin to meet his complex needs. Finally he enrolled in the School for the Blind and blossomed into a healthy, happy and vigorous young man.

Tragically, his mother has since died.  Closure of Oregon's School for the Blind means he'll return to the same school district that failed him before, but without his mother to advocate for him.

It is easy to dismiss human tragedy as 'anecdotal' evidence. To me the human cost is the only cost.

I have been a volunteer advocate at literally hundreds of Individual Education Program meetings. These create written plans and placements for special education students. I can attest to the lack of classroom resources, educational assistants, related services personnel, assistive technology and vocational training. The results are stifling and restrictive placements in what my daughter with Down syndrome derisively calls "happy gatherings" -- a chaos of snacks, games and 'field trips' to the park. The only real outcome being the perpetuation of the social isolation suffered by Americans with disabilities of all ages.

In the imaginary world of politics and special education administration, there may be a belief that all of this can be somehow fixed in the short version 2010 legislative session. Or maybe the one after that. But for those families whose lives are uprooted, September looms near and large. And with that comes diminished services, overwhelmed districts with no resources or expertise and a nagging sense of loss.

A  year or two in political time may be short. In the life of a young person it is long.

To the families of the children formerly receiving good services at the School for the Blind all I can do is sadly welcome you to the real world of special education. None of us will ever know what happened to that money this closure was advertised as saving. But I assure you that it will not be available when your child actually needs a real education.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of Disability Rights Oregon.