A dogged five-year campaign by parents to build a specialist school for their blind children culminated in the opening of permanent digs for the Insight school in Berwick on Tuesday.
Founder Alan Lachman, a businessman and father of 12-year-old blind student Francesca, said it was the realisation of a dream begun by the closure of Vision Australia’s Burwood school in 2009.
Mr Lachman said a lack of referrals by the Education Department and Vision Australia was partly why just five full-time and eight part-time visually impaired students aged five to 14 were enrolled.
He said the department had favoured integration into mainstream schools but recently offered to include Insight in literature offered to parents of vision-impaired children.
Lobbying at past elections saw Insight secure $2 million in funding from the state government and $1.5 million from Canberra.
A department spokesman did not respond to the non-referrals claim but said: ”The department encourages parents to look at all options available to them – this includes enrolment at Insight Education Centre.”
Maryanne Diamond from Vision Australia said the organisation believed education in mainstream schools, along with its own specialist services, gave children with vision impairment ”the best possible start in life”.
But she also said: ”We recognise that parents want the best for their children and understand that they want to explore alternatives.”
Mr Lachman hopes for student numbers to exceed 30 in the next three years as parents’ knowledge of the school grows. Four more buildings are planned, including art and science wings and a sensory garden.
From next week Insight staff will drive a caravan offering Braille and life skills to four western suburbs schools. It is hoped the van and satellite classrooms in schools around Victoria will reach more than 300 students.
Supporters have raised more than $6 million to create the school, full name Insight Education Centre for the Blind and Vision Impaired. Mr Lachman said the goal was for Insight to be self-sustaining. Student must pay $9000 a year and more than $700 for expenses.
Naomi O’Brien, of Bayswater, said her legally blind son Noah, 11, could read only at grade 1 level at a mainstream school a year ago but now, full time at Insight, was almost at grade 4 level and reading Harry Potter in large font.
He was ”thriving” being able to play with children like himself, had learnt to touch-type, cook and negotiate a shopping centre. ”It’s lovely to hear he’s enjoying school, enjoying learning,” she said
