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Students With Disabilities

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Project Gives Developmentally Disabled a Chance to Go to College

A college education is generally considered a student’s best shot at getting a good job these days, and it’s often assumed most high schoolers are prepared to attend college. But there’s one group that has been quietly excluded from that process — students with intellectual disabilities. A program at the University of South Florida St. […]

Hillsborough Superintendent Says District Is Ready For Medical Emergencies

Hillsborough County schools superintendent MaryEllen Elia is talking about what happened on a district bus when a child with muscular dystrophy stopped breathing and eventually died in 2012, now that the district has settled its lawsuit with the family. In a column written for the Tampa Bay Times, Elia notes the school district has 85 […]

Listen: A Mom Explains Why Florida Testing Policy Needs To Change

At yesterday’s State Board of Education meeting, Orlando mom Andrea Rediske scolded members for state and federal rules requiring standardized testing. Rediske’s son, Ethan, recently became a national story because Andrea Rediske was forced to submit a testing waiver as her dying son was in a morphine coma. Tuesday, she sought support for the Ethan […]

Explaining Why Some Student Results Are Excluded From A Key National Test

More than half of Maryland students with disabilities or learning English tested don’t count towards the Old Line State’s results on a key national standardized exam, according to The Washington Post. Maryland excludes the results of 62 percent of learning-disabled and English learners on the fourth grade National Assessment of Educational Progress reading exam. The […]

The Florida Senate’s 2013 Agenda So Far: In-State Tuition; Teacher Pay; Disabilities

While the Florida House has plenty of education-related bills to consider, Senators have introduced even more. The Senate has also introduced a bill, SB 180, granting the U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants in-state tuition rates. Those students would have to attend school in Florida for four years and apply to college within twelve months […]

What Hillsborough County Disabilities Advocates Want From The School Board And State Leaders

About two dozen protestors gathered Thursday to ask Hillsborough County school officials to change school policies after three students with disabilities dies following school-related events this year. The most important change they requested is that all aides working with students with disabilities are properly trained. But the group also had a more detailed list of […]

Hillsborough Parents Want Better Training for School Employees Working With Disabled

Since January three Hillsborough County students with disabilities have died during school-related events. Isabella Herrera, 7, died in January after she had trouble breathing on a school bus. Jesse Shillingford, 15, drowned at a back-to-school party hosted by a charter school. And Jennifer Caballero, 11, wandered away from a gym class — and five aides […]

Inside Florida’s Graduation Rate: Comparing Student Groups

This chart uses new federal graduation rate data to compare Florida to other states. We chose California, another large state with a diverse population, neighboring Georgia and Iowa, the state with the highest overall graduation rate. The federal data breaks down rates among subgroups, both by race and by issues such as disabilities, English knowledge […]

Autistic Tampa Student Will Attend His Neighborhood Middle School

After waiting 57 days since the school year began, Henry Frost will be able to cross the street and walk less than the length of two football fields to attend his neighborhood middle school. Frost has been taking courses at home while engaged in a dispute with Hillsborough County schools over where he should attend. […]

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