AIDB Board Votes to De-NAC

AIDB Board Votes to De-NAC

Braille

Monitor

May 2004

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AIDB Board Votes to

De-NAC

by

J. Michael Jones

Michael

Jones

From the Editor: Michael

Jones is president of the NFB of Alabama and for fourteen years was an employee

of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB). At AIDB he served as an

instructor/counselor and as an administrator. He resigned in late 2002 to complete

his doctorate in vocational rehabilitation and work as a graduate teaching assistant

for Auburn University. He is currently writing his dissertation on employment

outcomes for persons who are blind and have accessed the public vocational rehabilitation

program. He reports in the following brief article about recent positive events

at AIDB:

The National Accreditation

Council for Agencies Serving People with Blindness or Visual Impairment (NAC)

has been reviled for decades by people knowledgeable about the blindness field

as an embarrassment to accreditation bodies in America. I had read the literature

casting doubt on NAC's competence in evaluating agencies, but I was never able

to appreciate fully the truth of this criticism of the NAC evaluation process

until I experienced it firsthand as a participant in a program review by a NAC

survey team.

The

program areas that I was evaluated on while working as an administrator for

the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB) were reviewed by a NAC team

member who reported to me that he was a criminal psychologist who had briefly

worked in the vision field some thirty years before. I repeatedly inquired if

I should present documents to substantiate what I was reporting orally. I was

assured by the NAC reviewer that documentation was not necessary. I spent the

bulk of my program review answering questions about how the field of vision

had changed over the last thirty years and not on evaluating AIDB's programs.

However,

one need not draw on my observations alone to illustrate NAC's incompetence.

Consider that in the same review year, 1998, while the NAC team was on the scene

conducting its accreditation review, a worker at AIDB was using student records

for illegal purposes. This is how the Associated Press recently reported the

conclusion of that episode:

Alabama

News

Woman Sentenced in Tax Scheme That Used IDs Stolen from Blind

The Associated

Press

February 25, 2004

A woman convicted in a

$700,000 tax scheme that used identification stolen from blind students at a

Talladega school has been sentenced to one to two years in prison. Federal prosecutors

said Wednesday that former Talladega resident Roshanda Johnson, thirty-three,

now living in Plano, Texas, was sentenced on charges of conspiracy to submit

false tax claims and identity fraud. U.S. District Judge Inge P. Johnson sentenced

Johnson on Tuesday to one to two years, followed by three years of court supervision.

Convicted

November 4, Johnson was accused of stealing the Social Security numbers, birthdates,

and other information of children attending the Helen Keller School in Talladega

and providing it to an income tax return preparer in a false dependent tax scheme.

Johnson worked part-time at the school in 1997-98.

NAC might reasonably be

asked, don't its teams evaluate for general safe records storage and retrieval

processes as a part of the review of agencies? Fortunately the NAC review team

that visited AIDB in 1998 will be the last one to extend its probe into Alabama.

In 1998 the NFB of Alabama passed a resolution at its state convention urging

that AIDB discontinue its affiliation with NAC. AIDB's NAC accreditation was

to be up for review in 2003.

For

decades the AIDB had continued to pay for NAC accreditation until its new president,

Dr. Terry Graham, and its reorganized board of trustees, led by longtime NFB

member Mrs. Melissa Williamson, listened to blind people and rejected any further

affiliation with NAC accreditation. This move is symbolic and is a signal that

services for the blind in Alabama may be moving to a more competent level.

Here

is Dr. Graham's letter rejecting NAC accreditation in Alabama:

October 9, 2003

Mr. Steven K. Hegedeos,

Executive Director

National Accreditation Council

Lakewood, Ohio

Dear Mr. Hegedeos:

At

the September 30 meeting of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind Board of

Trustees, the Board voted to discontinue our relationship with the National

Accreditation Council. AIDB is the nation's most comprehensive education and

service program for children and adults who are deaf and blind, and our diverse

array of services literally spans a lifetime from infants and toddlers to senior

citizens. Regular examination and review of our programs will continue to be

a priority for us, but we have chosen to pursue other options for accreditation

at this time.

I

thank you and your organization for past support of AIDB and for your efforts

on behalf of persons who are blind and visually impaired. On behalf of our board

of trustees I wish you and NAC the very best in future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Terry

Graham

That was Dr. Graham's letter

to NAC. We of the NFB of Alabama are proud to announce that with this decision

Alabama can now boast a NAC-free environment. We are also pleased, but not surprised,

to report that with NAC accreditation a matter of history the AIDB board has

taken other courageous and overdue actions in recent months.

On

February 18, 2004, the Talladega Daily Home reported that following a

recommendation by the AIDB president and after learning that the Alabama Department

of Rehabilitation would no longer share in funding obsolete training programs,

the AIDB board of trustees voted to end seven training programs at the E.H.

Gentry Technical School. The programs have not shown good results in job placements

for graduates seeking employment in these areas. Twelve faithful employees will

lose their jobs, which is certainly regrettable, but AIDB now recognizes its

greater responsibility to do what it can to help its consumers, students, and

workers to work and earn competitively in the twenty-first century.

Also according to the Talladega

Daily Home of February 19, the board voted unanimously to raise the hourly

pay rate for Alabama Industries for the Blind production workers from $5.98

to $6.28 an hour, the first such actual pay increase in almost fifteen years.

Within a few months incentive increases will also begin for workers whose hard

work and productivity merit them. Cost-of-living increases have occasionally

occurred through the years, but this straight-up pay hike marks a significant

shift and was an important decision for the board of trustees to make. Perhaps

two such difficult and courageous actions at this time are simply accidental,

but I suspect that they are connected in some way with AIDB's decision to step

away from NAC. Whatever the case may be, the NFB of Alabama is pleased to give

credit to the institute and its board for positive decisions and courageous

actions.

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