DC Council bill aims to expand braille instruction for blind, visually impaired students

As a DC Public Schools student, Alexsandra Alfonso had to overcome unusual educational challenges due to her visual impairments — for instance, she once had to wait a month to receive a textbook in braille.

Even so, she graduated with honors from DC’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts in the spring and is now a freshman at Catholic University. “I wouldn’t say she’s an anomaly, but she’s a great example of a kid that was immersed in braille,” said Kim Alfonso, Alexsandra’s mother and chief operating officer at local nonprofit Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind.

Firm in the belief that other blind or visually impaired students would benefit from similar immersion in braille, Kim Alfonso is urging the DC Council to help make that happen. She is part of a coalition calling on lawmakers to create new standards for braille across the city’s school system, aiming to increase the literacy and long-term independence of blind and visually impaired students like her daughter.

Though a bill to do so has support from a number of advocates for the blind, DC education officials testifying at a council hearing last month expressed concerns about the sweeping new requirements for braille that the legislation would establish if adopted.

Ward 4 DC Council member Brandon Todd is leading the push for the new measure, titled the Blind Students Literacy and Education Rights Act, which he introduced in April with colleagues Brianne Nadeau and Anita Bonds. The legislation is now under review in the council’s Education Committee.

If passed, the law would require that all individualized education programs (IEPs) of blind and visually impaired students in the District include firm plans for braille education, unless educators decide otherwise for a particular student. It also sets standards for braille instruction and requires that DC schools buy only textbooks that can be easily translated to braille.

“Braille is not a standard in DC public schools,” said Shawn Callaway, who has advocated for such legislation for several years as president of the DC chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. “You have to go through a lot of hoops just to learn how to read braille.”

One main concern for advocates is that students with partial vision are not taught braille, but instead encouraged to read with the assistance of technology. This can cause a problem when students get older, as the volume of text increases or as vision worsens, leading many to drop out in high school or college. According to Callaway, over 70 percent of blind working-age adults are unemployed.

Teaching braille skills early can help set students up for better outcomes, Alfonso said.

“We do know that braille literacy absolutely correlates to success, higher income and employment,” she said. “It improves students’ success, their confidence and their independence.”

Both Alfonso and Callaway are among a group of local advocates who have pushed for years for this kind of legislation in DC. According to Callaway, 40 states have already passed similar laws.

Callaway recalled attending a meeting about five years ago with DC Public Schools officials, where they asked him for more data on the necessity of braille education. “It’s almost a lack of awareness and a sense of ignorance,” he said. “And they aren’t going to come out and say it, but it’s [also] about money.”

For Council member Todd, the proposal became more concrete after conversations with Libra Robinson, a local advocate and vice president of the DC chapter of the National Federation of the Blind, according to Todd spokesperson Joshua Fleitman. She first interacted with Todd while promoting one of the group’s fundraisers, leading to further discussions on braille literacy and the lawmaker’s vow for action.

According to Callaway, the national federation shared model legislation with Todd’s office to help guide formation of the DC measure.

“We can and must do better for the District’s 17,000 residents living with a visual impairment, including the over 1,000 under age 17,” Todd said in a statement after introducing the bill in April. The bill was referred to the council’s Committee on Education, chaired by at-large member David Grosso.

That committee’s Oct. 10 hearing on the bill featured testimony from representatives of the DC Public Schools system and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE). Both officials expressed support for the law’s intent but cited concerns with the default to braille education — which would mark a shift from the District’s current reliance on the IEP process to determine whether a particular student will be taught braille.

“[DCPS] believes that the bill as drafted attempts to standardize a process that requires flexibility and expertise for each individual student,” said Corrine Colgan, interim chief of the Office of Teaching and Learning at DC Public Schools. She also said that many DCPS students with degenerative conditions do receive braille instruction as a result of their IEPs.

Shavonne Gibson, OSSE’s assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, noted that many of the bill’s provisions are already in place in both practice and in law. However, she said the bill would add inappropriate, unnecessary hurdles, such as placing a requirement for greater “explanation on IEP teams when braille isn’t included in a student’s IEP.”

Both officials also voiced concerns over the bill’s proposed requirement for DC teachers of blind and visually impaired students to demonstrate braille proficiency, warning that the change could shrink the pool of qualified applicants.

Colgan noted that DCPS has a full-time braille translator on staff to help create textbooks and reading materials. When Grosso asked about complaints over waiting times, Colgan said she was unaware of the problem but would look into it.

Advocates for the blind and visually impaired did not attend the Oct. 10 hearing, but Callaway submitted written testimony in support of the bill, in which he states that during his tenure at NFB, he has only met one or two students educated at DCPS who have graduated will college degrees.

“I urge the council to pass the Blind Students Literacy and Education Act to insure that our blind and visually impaired children will be able to obtain a quality education and acquire meaningful employment,” he wrote in his testimony.

A spokesperson for Grosso said that the Education Committee does not have any more markup sessions scheduled as of now and thus is unlikely to act on the bill by the end of the year, when the current two-year council period ends. Todd’s spokesperson said, however, that his office is still expecting a vote based on a commitment from Grosso, adding that Todd is likely to reintroduce the bill in 2019 if there’s no movement this year.