Recommendation in favour of school for the visually impaired remaining open

A smaller, leaner Iowa Braille and Sight-Saving School should stay in Vinton, a task force recommended Monday.The school, with 34 resident students, could consolidate into two buildings so the state can lease the other three, Jeananne Schild, the school's interim superintendent, told the Iowa Board of Regents on Monday.

The recommendation — the regents will vote on the school's future in June — was the work of a regents-appointed task force that has studied how to best provide services to Iowa's visually impaired students. The state spends nearly $7 million to educate Iowa's blind and visually impaired students; about $4 million goes to Iowa Braille.Money saved through the recommended consolidation and some layoffs would be spent to beef up academics on campus and programs for the 427 visually impaired children who do not attend the Vinton school, Schild said.

"We believe these actions would be a first step in addressing questions of effectiveness and efficiency," she said.The regents' chairman, Michael Gartner, said he gets more mail, e-mail and telephone calls about the fate of the Iowa Braille school than any other issue."Let me summarize: The Vinton school will remain open?" Gartner asked."Yes," Schild replied.

Parents of visually impaired students were pleased with the news."As a parent, I'm just worried about them doing something drastic, like shutting down the school and having the whole system fall apart because there's not that main place that people know about," said Tom Howsare of Solon, who uses resources and experts at Iowa Braille for his 7-year-old son, Jalen.Task force recommendations include:

• A consolidation study of Iowa Braille buildings.

• Improved classes in math and science.

• Short-term courses, such as sports camps and technical training seminars, in other parts of the state.

• A personnel study to determine what positions can be eliminated.

• Traveling vision specialists to work through the state, rather than through separate agencies.

• System-wide professional development."We will have assessment, and we'll be able to tell you what you're getting for the dollars you are spending," Schild told the regents.The debate is similar to ones in Washington and Virginia, where education officials try to match limited resources to visually impaired students. Nationally, 41 states have schools for the blind; in 13 of those states, schools for the visually impaired and deaf share facilities.

Enrollment in state institutions such as Iowa Braille began to decline nationally after passage of a 1975 federal law that ensured disabled students had the same educational opportunities as their peers. The law led to more disabled children to attend neighborhood public schools.Iowa Braille supporters say the school's staff is better trained to provide the specialized instruction students require.

In addition, they said, if officials publicized the school's services, more parents would opt to send their children.Terry Anderson of Ankeny, whose 19-year-old son is blind and has cerebral palsy, was upset Monday that the regents would consider the recommendations, which he says discriminate against the most needy children.He said school leaders should not need to resort to downsizing, and should use available federal money to get the same result.