schoolsearch: Special-needs students await word on programs

Special-needs students await word on programs

The mother of a child with Down's syndrome gets her in one school's program this year but hasn't heard whether the program will be offered next year.

By JOHN REINAN

The mother of a child with Down's syndrome gets her in one school's program this year but hasn't heard whether the program will be offered next year.

ST. PETERSBURG -- Julie LeMay has become an expert at working the system on behalf of her daughter. Clare, 5, has Down's syndrome, so she can't go to St. Jude's Cathedral School, where her 7-year-old brother Adam is in second grade.

Clare needs a varying exceptionalities program that only the public schools offer. And her mother has made sure she gets into one.

Julie LeMay got a special attendance permit allowing Clare to begin kindergarten this year at 74th Street Elementary. Northwest Elementary was the zoned school for her Harshaw-area neighborhood of central St. Petersburg.

"I used choice to help get the special attendance permit," LeMay said. "I told them, "I'm going to put her here next year regardless (under the choice plan), so you may as well let me start her here now.' "

LeMay said she relied on advice from Clare's pre-K teachers at Azalea Elementary in choosing an elementary program.

"They told me to visit a lot of schools," she said. "They told me to go to every possible place, and they said you'll know it when you find it."

Actually, LeMay said, she didn't have to visit many schools before settling on 74th Street Elementary. Clare is doing well, and the family hopes to make 74th Street the choice for next year.

But so far, officials have been unable to say for certain whether the school will continue to offer the special education program that she needs.

"I asked them whether they'd be able to tell the parents where the . . . programs will be next year, and they said they would," LeMay said in August. "But, so far, they haven't told me anything."

LeMay said her 3-year-old son Joseph will join his brother at St. Jude's when he's old enough. Ideally, the family would like to have all three of the children at the parochial school.

But that's not possible for Clare, so her mother will make sure she gets the best the public schools have to offer.

"I went to work to get her where she is," LeMay said, "and I want to make sure she stays where she is."