UAB Wins Grant to Recruit, Train Rural School Teachers to Work with Visually Impaired Children

Nearly 200 school children who are blind or visually impaired in Alabama’s Black Belt and northeast regions are going without teachers who are trained to instruct them. But a new three-year, $150,000 grant awarded to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Education will change that.

January 22, 2003

BIRMINGHAM, AL - Nearly 200 school children who are blind or visually impaired in Alabama's Black Belt and northeast regions are going without teachers who are trained to instruct them. But a new three-year, $150,000 grant awarded to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Education will change that.

The grant, awarded to UAB by the EyeSight Foundation of Alabama, will help fill the state's critical need for more qualified teachers of the blind and visually impaired.

"There is actually a national shortage of teachers who are certified to instruct children who are blind and visually impaired," said Mary Jean Sanspree, Ph.D., principle investigator for the grant, a research professor in the UAB School of Education and international president of the International Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Division on Visual Impairments.

According to figures from the CEC, there are only an estimated 6,700 qualified visual impairment teachers for the 93,000 children who are blind and visually impaired in the United States. Nearly 12,000 more teachers are needed.

In Alabama, nearly 1,000 school children have been identified as blind or visually impaired, says Sanspree, citing figures from the U.S. Department of Education's 22nd Report to Congress. "In Alabama, we need about 100 more teachers," she said. "We only have about 50 teachers statewide, and the bulk of them are teaching at the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind. The rest, about 13 or 14, teach in public schools around Alabama, and most of those teachers are concentrated in the larger cities and counties, like Birmingham, Mobile, and Huntsville.

"The majority of children who are blind and visually impaired in rural Alabama are placed at residential schools," Sanspree said. "The rest attend public schools with teachers who are not trained to teach the visually impaired."

The School of Education's Department of Leadership, Special Education and Foundations will use the EyeSight Foundation grant to recruit and train 10 special education and regular classroom teachers each year for three years from school districts in the Black Belt and northeast regions of Alabama. Grant monies will be used to pay for tuition and recruitment costs.

Special education teachers enrolled in the program can earn credit toward graduate or a master's degree certification in visual impairment. The courses will be taught through classroom instruction and distance learning. In addition, the teachers will be paired with a UAB faculty mentor who they can call to get answers to questions and help with developing lesson plans.

UAB has the only graduate program in visual impairment education in Alabama. For more information, call UAB Vision and Deafblind Program toll free at (866) 975-0624.