Seventy-seven young people with medical special needs will be moving from the school they have attended in Lee County to another next year, and parents of those students are very concerned.
Parents of the students at Buckingham Exceptional School in Fort Myers learned by a letter in early April that their children would be moving — along with their teachers and staff — to Royal Palm Exceptional School next year. Royal Palm educates children with behavioral needs.
Despite assurances from the school district that any accessibility problems at Royal Palm will be amended over the summer, and all equipment will be moved along with the students, Buckingham parents remain skeptical, particularly after attending an open house at Royal Palm a few days after receiving the news.
Consequently, about two dozen parents and community members showed up at the most recent board of education meeting April 14 to plead with the board to reverse this decision, citing many important modifications for disabled students that Buckingham school has and Royal Palm does not.
For instance, Katie and Will Peterson's daughter is in second grade and is blind. She gets around her school by using a hand rail, which does not exist at Royal Palm. Her parents also are concerned about heat exposure. Whether due to medical conditions or medication issues, 62 percent of Buckingham school students according to their Individual Education Plans can have only limited exposure to heat — including the Petersons' daughter — said Will Peterson, who has done the math.
Katie Peterson is the school's parent liaison. "Her current school, it's an enclosed school, meaning that it's temperature controlled everywhere. ... At the rurally situated Royal Palm facility all of the classrooms exit out to the courtyard. So for her to walk even from the front doors of the school to her classroom or to walk from classroom to classroom could actually be potentially harmful for her health."
Another student often crawls from classroom to classroom, which is not a problem since Buckingham is carpeted. Royal Palm is not.
Wheelchair accessibility is also a problem, the Petersons say. While Buckingham is level, Royal Palm has a large hill in the back, where the current school's garden would logically go. That would be prohibitive for many, if not most, of the students.
"We've been told that it will be set up for them, but a move in general to a new environment with kiddos like the ones we have who are so medically fragile, it's really just setting them up for regression. And honestly, even health concerns. My daughter, if she is stressed, her health declines," Katie Peterson said.
Overcrowding is another concern for Buckingham parents. Although they've been hearing numbers like 50 or 60 percent capacity for both schools, Will Peterson alleges that the numbers are actually quite a bit higher at both schools. With vulnerable populations, that's far more of a concern than with a general population.
Although the decision to co-locate Buckingham school within Royal Palm drew some very emotional pleas to the board of education, the decision was made by school administrators, said Lee County Schools spokesman Rob Spicker. It did not require board approval since Buckingham school will not be closed. A decision has not yet been made about what the school will be used for, Spicker said.
Since parents were impassioned in their pleas to the board, WGCU reached out to all board members for comment.
We received an email from board chair Armor Persons, who represents District 5, where Buckingham Exceptional School is located. He said: "The schools are not combining but co-locating in the same building. They will be two separate schools. All the support for the Buckingham students is following the students. This includes teachers, staff, classroom furnishings and equipment, playground and even the garden."
Board member Debbie Jordan expressed her skepticism in an interview.
"I'm still trying to find out what this actually looks like. I'm very familiar with both of the schools ... and we were briefed on it in our one-on-one (with the superintendent), but it was very short. I am concerned because I want to make sure that everybody is safe. I want to make sure that there's a single point entrance (for each school), that the buses are different buses. And just how that's all going to take place. Nobody has been able to share that with me at this point in time.
"And I have asked, what's the cost? What is it going to cost us to fit that school for what is needed for the children?"
The other board members — Melisa Giovannelli, Samuel Fisher, Bill Ribble, Jada Langford Fleming and Vanessa Chaviano — did not respond to our email.
More information about Buckingham Exceptional School and its parent advocacy group, Little Voices of Buckingham, is available on Facebook here.
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