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Long road, happy destination: graduation

As a daughter gets her diploma from the CREST School tonight, a mother remembers the steps and decisions along the way.

LECANTO - Jessica Hahr is one of 12 students who will graduate tonight from CREST, the Citrus County school district's school for exceptional education students. It will be a major step on what has been a long road for Jessica and her mother, Chris.

Chris Hahr had heard that Citrus County had a good system in place for special students, and Jessica started at Oak Hill School at the Key Training Center when she was just a preschooler.

When Jessica, who has cerebral palsy, was ready for kindergarten, the school system placed her in a traditional school setting, where she stayed for about a year and a half. Hahr decided Jessica needed the special school and returned her to the program, which by that time had a new name and location: Lakeview School in Hernando.

Jessica was doing fine for a while when the school district moved her to a self-contained classroom at Hernando Elementary School. The move proved beneficial.

"It was a good step for her," Hahr said. "I saw her grow up a little bit, because she was around other kids."

Soon enough, though, it was time for another difficult decision: where to put Jessica for middle school.

Hahr visited Inverness and Lecanto middle schools and decided to send Jessica back to Lakeview. "I picked that because they could work on her academics, do job training and socialize and she's done very well there," she said.

When Lakeview became the Citrus Resource for Exceptional Students Transition (CREST) School and moved from the old Hernando school to the new campus in the Lecanto education complex in 1994, Jessica went along.

Her education included job training at the Key center. But Jessica saw other students travel to Brentwood Retirement Community for job training, and she wanted to go there, too. The school hesitated, but she was able to go during a summer session four or five years ago, Hahr said.

"Now I work in the laundry Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and I'm off Friday," Jessica said. During the past year and a half, the work has been a paying position, her mother said.

Jessica's goal is to have a job, make her own money and not sit home. "And maybe some day move into a group home," Hahr said.

After Jessica graduates she will begin taking classes at the Key center to continue building her life skills and training. She will keep working at Brentwood.

Since she has been at CREST for so long, it might seem that graduation would be a difficult time for the 22-year-old senior.

"It's easy," she said. "Everybody knows everybody at the Key. Everybody knows everybody at Brentwood. It's easy."

But maybe not so for her mother.

"The people at Brentwood are wonderful," Hahr said. Jessica will still see her CREST friends when they come to Brentwood, so it really won't be so difficult for her. But that doesn't mean a dry-eyed graduation for her mother.

Of course, she said, she will be crying. "I plan to bring my box of tissues."

There are a few people from CREST whom Jessica will miss: Keith Posta, the principal; Debby Hudson, the curriculum specialist; Toni Bell, the school nurse; job coach Sue Jordan; teacher Rona Cooper; and guidance counselor Paul Heinzer, in particular.

"Having CREST here is like a godsend," Hahr said, "(with) teachers who understand and work with children with disabilities."

The children get "an education, job training and socializing. It's been wonderful having Jessica at CREST. I don't think she should graduate for 10 more years."

"Yeah," said Jessica, who exclaimed she will soon be a free woman. "But tough luck."

CREST School will hold its graduation ceremony at 7 p.m. today in the school gymnasium. It will be followed by a dance and refreshments. The public is invited.