The red dining room walls of Casey Robertson’s house in Hamilton hold 26 crosses of different shapes, colors and sizes, serving as a testament to her faith, which has guided her work in blindness advocacy for the last two decades.
In 2000, Robertson’s niece Imilie West and nephew Jackson West were born premature, and due to medical complications, they both lost significant portions of their vision, Robertson said.
When Imilie started school, she would come home every day with ink on her nose because she had to hold the paper so close to her face to read it.
Rather than teaching her braille or giving her access to adequate resources, the school insisted she use her vision until she went fully blind.
“It actually gave me migraines, having to strain my vision to keep up with the other kids,” Imilie said.
In 2008, Robertson pursued a degree in teaching blind students at Louisiana Tech University to more effectively advocate for Imilie.
Robertson started teaching Imilie braille outside of school, hoping to give her a headstart so that when she inevitably lost the rest of her vision, she wouldn’t have to start from scratch.
Imilie had limited sight until she turned 14, but one night in seventh grade, she went to bed with a bad headache and woke up fully blind the next morning.
“I am very glad I got the help that I got before I did lose all of my sight because that was hard enough on my brain,” Imilie said. “I don’t even want to imagine if it had put me back in school too.”
Robertson’s experience with helping Imilie motivated her to advocate harder for blind and low-vision people to have access to literacy.
“Literacy is a basic human right,” Robertson said. “There’s no reason we should be keeping literacy from blind students just because they’re blind.”
Robertson was named the Braille Institute’s 2026 Teacher of the Year, an international award granted to educators who go above and beyond to support and advocate for blind and low-vision students.
She has supported families, curated educational programs, mentored teachers and future professionals and shaped policy in an effort to create a world where blind people have the same access to literacy and education as sighted people.
One of Roberston’s favorite success stories, she said, is Kayla Baker, 12, from Fairhope, Alabama. Baker’s school district had given up on her, saying that she was illiterate and there was nothing they could do. Robertson said she felt compelled to see for herself.
Robertson put Baker’s family in contact with an advocate from the National Federation of the Blind and created an individualized curriculum for Baker, using a program she developed called the Natural Order of Contractions.
Baker went from being unable to read any contracted braille in September 2024 to reading on grade level with her peers by May 2025, Robertson said.
“She went from being hidden inside herself and really struggling with school … to (being) this kid that is vibrant and reading and enjoying school,” Robertson said.
Braille literacy crisis
There is currently a braille literacy crisis, Robertson said, which is guided by a lack of teachers who can effectively teach blind children, a lack of investment in braille literacy from schools due to blindness being a low incident disability and the myth that blindness is inferior.
“(Schools) will enlarge stuff, they’ll do different things, but they will not teach them braille until they’ve gone fully blind,” Robertson said. “At that point … it’s not too late, but it puts them behind.”
According to the National Braille Press, only 26% of blind people are employed, and the majority of those who have jobs read braille. Despite this, braille literacy rates in school-age blind children have been cut in half over the last 40 years, now sitting at less than 20%.
Furthermore, the National Eye Institute states that visual impairment and blindness cases in the United States are expected to double to more than 8 million by 2050.
Robertson is trying to get ahead of the curve by advocating for change in school systems, inside and outside of state lines.
“I do a lot of traveling to other states that have blind students and the schools don’t know what to do,” Robertson said. “I’ll go in and train their teachers on how to provide services for those blind students (and) rewrite curriculum.”
Robertson also provides a free braille course online for parents and paraprofessionals to provide them with the knowledge and skills to help their kids with homework and connect with them on a deeper level.
“How do (parents) write a letter from the tooth fairy if they don’t know braille?” Robertson said. “It just gives them a connection that is so valuable.”
This also provides parents with the ability to go into individualized education program meetings with the education needed to effectively advocate for their child’s needs, Robertson said.
Gwen Shaver, 7, from Auburn, Alabama, has a rare disease that prevents her bones from breaking down, which compresses her optic nerves, leading to significant vision loss. When she was in pre-K, Robertson assessed her situation and determined that she needed a specialized teacher who could support her in the classroom.
“Kids like her that have any kind of vision, the school systems tend to push (just using) their vision even though it’s painful … or they aren’t getting anything out of it,” said Deanna Shaver, Gwen’s mother. “If you don’t have someone educated like Casey to come in … it’s difficult.”
Ben Shaver, Gwen’s father, took Robertson’s free summer braille class so he could help Gwen with homework, and Deanna said the class was more thorough than what she took when she went to school for blind education.
Deanna said that if it weren’t for Robertson, Gwen wouldn’t have an aid that knew braille and wouldn’t be adequately supported in the classroom.
“There’s nobody else more worthy of that award,” Deanna said. “She deserves it all.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
