[Missouri-l] FW: [leadership] FW: news to share in a new year

[Peter Altschul]

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----- Original Message ----- 

From: Stuart Wittenstein <mailto:swittenstein at csb-cde.ca.gov>  

To: Al <mailto:acgil2006 at gmail.com>  Gil ; Amandal at sfsu.edu ; Ann
<mailto:alinville at csb-cde.ca.gov>  Linville ; Barbara
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Jamie <mailto:jrizzo at csb-cde.ca.gov>  Rizzo ; jetteweaver at yahoo.com ;
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<mailto:mreardon at csb-cde.ca.gov>  Reardon ; mgpjcole at comcast.net ;
pwilliams at hcblind.org ; Richard Rueda <mailto:RArueda at dor.ca.gov>  ; Sharon
<mailto:ssacks at csb-cde.ca.gov>  Sacks ; Staci Gonzales
<mailto:sgonzales at csb-cde.ca.gov>  ; Stuart
<mailto:swittenstein at csb-cde.ca.gov>  Wittenstein ; Theresa deMalherbe
<mailto:demotlc1 at comcast.net>  

Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:21 AM

Subject: news to share in a new year

 


Hi all,


Happy new year!  I hope you and your families are doing well and had a
wonderful holiday season.  


I am writing to you today to share the information below from a
self-identified "progressive" blog, called BlueOregon, who is reporting that
Oregon State Representative Sara Gelser has been nominated to serve on
President Obama's National Council on Disability.  Representative Gelser, as
chair of the education committee in Oregon's House, is the person who led
the movement to close the Oregon School for the Blind because she believes
that all specialized educational settings are inappropriate.  She has much
backing in the disability community in Oregon - not from the blindness
community, but from high incidence disability advocates, many of whom see
any separate education as immoral.


If you check out the comments to this online article (pasted below), you'll
find many disability advocates congratulating her and blindness advocates
taking an opposite position.  Although many in Oregon believed the school to
be ineffective, it seems to me there ought to have been a way to improve the
school and make use of its potential for Oregon's blind children rather than
to shut it down and lose the statewide resource it could have become.


 


State Representative Sara Gelser Nominated to Federal Post 


Kristin Teigen


On Wednesday, President Obama nominated Oregon State Representative Sara
Gelser (HD -16) to serve on the National Council on Disability. If confirmed
by the Senate, Gelser would become one of fifteen members of the Council,
which advises Congress, Obama and executive branch departments on policies
and programs that ensure equality and inclusion for people with
disabilities.

The post would allow Gelser to keep her position in the Legislature, where
she is Assistant Majority Leader and Chair of the House Committee on
Education. She filed for re-election in early December.

As many know, Representative Gelser has worked consistently for appropriate
services and for the rights of people with disabilities. Among other pieces
of legislation, she pushed for changes in Medicaid to allow families to keep
children with disabilities at home rather than being forced to move them to
a nursing home. She also sponsored legislation that provided individuals
with disabilities with substantial protections from caregiver abuse, and
that allowed testimonies in court of those individuals with disabilities who
may have been the victims of abuse.

Before joining the Legislature, Gelser served as the Children with
Disabilities and Family Support Coordinator for the Oregon State Department
of Human Services and as founder of the FG Syndrome Family Alliance.
Additionally, she was a member of the Corvallis School Board and is the
mother of four children, including a teenage son with disabilities. Her work
in Washington, DC, if confirmed, will no doubt reflect this diverse set of
experiences. 

At the end of a week of nebulous reports about Obama's leadership -
healthcare, Copenhagen, Bernanke - it's great to have some news that is
obviously worthy of our approval. 

 

 

 

Stuart Wittenstein, Ed.D.

Superintendent

California School for the Blind

500 Walnut Avenue

Fremont, CA 94536

510-794-3800, X201

 

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and
falling short; 

but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." Michelangelo

 

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