My 16 year old sister, a sophomore in high school is legally blind, 20/400 vision. My parents & her have lived in Picayune, Ms for the past two years and the school board still doesn't have any braille material.

In central Louisiana, when she was in elementary/Jr. high, the state paid for two aides to get certified in braille and followed her everywhere. That was their job to make sure the teachers were taking care of business and Nola(my sis) was learning.

Now, the Ms. state school board will not do anything, all the aide does is blow her PRINTED test up to 16 font. And there is no one in the state of Mississippi certified to teach her the braille algebra symbols.

It's now come to the point where attorneys are getting involved, the educational adviser for the governor is taking some heat. My mom has been trying to get in contact with Oprah, the president and just about anyone else who will listen.

 

Sorry to hear about your sister, and the situation. I wish I could help more but, really contacting higher sources who have chances to get it out there IE Oprah, Maury, email Foxnews, or local news get the poor girl on TV let people see whats going on. I know a state wide program here that if you have a POS deal they will help. Some women bought a 3G frig and it went out on her the same night, they didn't want to replace it. She got ahold of them they did a thing on the news, the company called her up replaced the frig and told her she would have new frigs untill the company or she died which one first lol. They just didnt want the thing running on tv again. I wish you the best man like I said wish I could help more.

 

What are the laws in MS? Is the public school system required to provide aides for her? If they are purposefully not providing required assitance to her I see your point.

It is quite an expense for a school to provide one on one or two on one assitance for one student. I know when I was in school there were specific schools that were used for different "disabilities. Here in Little Rock for example they have a Deaf specific school. They specialize in deaf children. Is there anything like that where you are in MS?

 

Every state is required to have proper materials for teaching disabled students. IE: a disabled student in a wheelchair gets handicap ramps and assistance when needed.

A blind student gets braille and not have to try and learn on printed materials. 20/400 is she sees at 20 feet what you can see at 400 feet. And yes a 7am - 4pm aide is supposed to be at her side non-stop.

This whole deal is verging on the discriminatory side of laws, they've been trying for the past two years to get braille materials