Blind schools versus mainstreaming
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Mystic Dawn
Kinnick
Tom the transplanted southerner and BE vendors
Tom the transplanted southerner and BE vendors
Gordon
The Texas school for the blind would have pretty good lunch during the weekdays because that's when guests would come to visit the school and they would always want to come in the cafeteria and watch us eat lunch. Lol that's also when they would invite parents of potential students to come and check out the school. 
Mystic Dawn
Mystic Dawn
Kinnick
Tom the transplanted southerner and BE vendors
Gordon
Gordon
Tom the transplanted southerner and BE vendors
Micah
Tiffany
Harmony Finder
Tiffany
Tom the transplanted southerner and BE vendors
Tom the transplanted southerner and BE vendors
Tiffany
Gordon
Mystic Dawn
Tiffany
chess playing guitarist
Micah
Kinnick
chess playing guitarist
Maria Reyes
I'm definitely greatful my parents mainstreamed me, but I don't think they didn't really have a choice, because I don't think Michigan has a blind school per say, but we have a training center. The only gripes I've heard about blind school are that you don't get socialized very well.
chess playing guitarist
Wes Ferrell
This is going to be a ramble… From my perspective there needs to be a combination of both mainstreaming and an educational setting with other blind students. Through the 4th grade in Elementary school I was bused to a school in our district with classes for a majority of the disabled students in the district and this was a horrible experience so I was mainstreamed and repeated the 4th grade to get acclimated to the elementary school in my neighborhood. It was a challenging time and having only sighted friends who couldn’t relate to some of my challenges wasn’t easy. I was pulled out of class for mobility training and had an instructor to teach me some blindness skills. Our lighthouse started having programs for visually impaired students every few months and I found people I could relate to and some of them are my friends to this day. As far as physical education the school did not let me participate starting in the 8th grade because they did not want to be liable for my potential injury so I ran around the track and lifted weights 50lbs or less. Jump forward to graduation from high school and college. My first experience with interacting with other blind students in a learning environment was a summer where we lived in an apartment complex, learned to cook, clean and other essential skills. This was great for me as I had the chance to get a good perspective on how other people like me solve problems. Then I attended Criss Cole in Austin for a college prep program and that was a good balance between worlds as we took a course at Austin Community College and then finally I ended up at University of Houston to get a degree in Management Information systems. Sorry if the personal stuff got to much but I hope my story shows why it is important to have a balance between the sighted and blind world.
Kinnick
King Tripple Whopper
Just testing something regarding the app. 
Chantel Cuddemi
Nestor
Personally, I believe the best approaches starting off at a blind school from maybe K to eighth grade. Then transitioning to a mainstream public school. I went to a blind school from K to 12 and it was pretty isolating. There’s other flaws with it as well. For an example, you don’t get AP classes in blind schools that you do in public schools. 
Hans
Gordon
King Tripple Whopper
King Tripple Whopper
Black Lightning42
Gordon
Tiffany
Rebecca
Harmony Finder
King Tripple Whopper
I only know mainstream public schools because Los Angeles doesn’t have a blind school in the traditional sense. Therefore, all I can do is support what I have grown up in and say that public schools are the best environment depending! And I strongly mean that word depending!! On where the school is located and what type of neighborhood if this makes sense. I can tell you that the Los Angeles unified school district is one of the worst school districts if not the worst in the United States! It is far too big, and both employees of LAUSD and students generally don’t get a great education, but I can also say that throughout the entire United States our educational system sucks! 
Black Lightning42
Heather/Chaos