Schools Address Parents’ Doubts

January 26, 2010

SPECIAL EDUCATION: Series of workshops is designed to rebuild confidence

Parents’ confidence in the Sarasota school system’s ability to serve special education students fell in the wake of allegations that a Venice teacher abused her students.

In response, the school district has scheduled a series of informational workshops to reach out to parents and get them involved with the school system.

As part of that effort, this week district officials welcomed the state’s top special education official to talk to parents and tour classrooms.

"With everything that happened in our community last year, I knew we had to start trying to rebuild confidence in our school system," said Sonia Figaredo-Alberts, who oversees Sarasota’s special education services.

"I thought her coming down here would be a good way to do that."

On Thursday evening, state director Bambi Lockman conducted a workshop for parents, debriefing them on some of the biggest issues in special education such as funding, testing and treatment of students.

On Friday, she toured four area schools that house some of Sarasota’s unique special education programs.

At Fruitville Elementary and Laurel Nokomis, she visited classrooms for autistic children and learned about efforts to include those students in regular classes.

At Sarasota High, Lockman met students who are working with teachers to prepare for work or school when they graduate.

She also got to tour Oak Park, the largest school in the state exclusively for special needs students.

Lockman said she gets to visit only a handful of districts each year. This was her first visit to Sarasota; she has overseen Florida’s special education system since 2004.

"It is very obvious to me that Sarasota County is moving forward with a strong instructional curriculum and has the best interest of the children at heart," Lockman said.