Opinion : Students' rights: Who decides for the blind and visually impaired?

By Robert Spangler

Iowa Council of the United Blind

Few people think about students' rights - especially those of the disabled.

Parents take it for granted that school officials will do what is best for their child. However, most parents are not told the full choices their child may have, especially when those choices involve a blind or visually impaired child.

In Iowa, if your child is deaf or hard of hearing, you are most likely told of the special school for the deaf located in Council Bluffs. If your child is blind or visually impaired, you are most likely NOT told of the special school for the blind in Vinton. The blind and visually impaired are expected to remain in their home community school and teachers specially trained to provide the needed services travel to them. Why not offer the opportunity to attend a special school like those who are deaf are offered?

The Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School was founded in 1852 and has been serving the blind of Iowa with on-campus educational programming similar to that offered at the Iowa School for the Deaf. In 2006 the Board of Regents, the governing board of Iowa's three universities and the state's two special schools, began cutting educational programming on the Vinton campus. Prior to that time regents and school officials had been reducing the school population annually from nearly 130 in 1970 to 34 in 2005 in an effort to close the school and ending the special schools services.

On the other hand, while the school for the blind is continually cutting services, the school for the deaf goes on unchallenged.

IBSSS officials explain their decisions to end both educational and residential services are in the best interest of the students by keeping them in their homes and in the public schools in their communities. What parents and government officials do not hear is that those remaining in the public school systems often do not get the same quality education or the blindness-related skills needed to achieve independence after graduation.

Iowa Braille had offered those attending the school unchallenged opportunities in many areas that those in the public schools of today will not get. Sporting events that allowed the blind and visually impaired to compete on an even level with other blind and visually impaired students in track and field, wrestling, cheerleading and swimming opened the students' minds to setting higher goals for themselves. Music was a big part of the school; Iowa Braille was the first school for the blind to have a marching band. With all that this fine school had to offer along with the student interaction with those of similar disabilities allowed many to advance their education upon graduation from the school. The school has had many graduates go on to become lawyers, doctors, teachers and numerous other professional persons.

Today Iowans are allowing this great educational opportunity for the blind and visually impaired to become a lost asset that will no longer see the very student it was designed to educate. Is it fair that one special school is allowed to close while the other remains unchallenged? If federal law requires all blind children to be educated in the public schools, doesn't that same law require those who are deaf and hard of hearing to be educated in public schools?