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Academy Making A Difference

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By GEOFF FOX

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 8, 2008

DADE CITY - Shelby Hines received a rousing ovation as she was wheeled before her Academy at the Farm classmates.

One of the charter school's first students, Shelby, 14, was celebrated at a student rally Thursday as the honorary chairwoman for the school's first Make A Difference Walk, a fundraiser to be held April 26 in downtown Dade City. The event will raise money for the school, which opened in 2002 and also receives state money.

To Shelby's parents, Tim and Susan Hines, every cent the kindergarten through eighth-grade charter school receives is worth it. When Shelby was a baby, she had a catastrophic reaction to the DPT vaccine, meant to prevent whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus.

"She had a massive and quick onset of seizures that changed her brain," Susan Hines said. "It took awhile for the doctors to pinpoint what it was and how to stop it. She's been seizure-free for 13 years, but the damage was irreparable. The prognosis when she was 4 months old was that she would be in an institution and on a feeding tube."

Shelby was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. At 3, she was able to attend prekindergarten programs through public school, where she received occupational and speech therapy. However, the teacher-to-student ratios meant that she received little one-on-one instruction.

When Susan Hines learned that a charter school that could accommodate special-needs children was going to open in a rural area of northeast Pasco County, she drove to the location before construction of the school began.

Fran McCrimmon, lead instructor at Academy at the Farm, said she remembered giving the Hineses information about the future school from a makeshift office in a garage on the property.

Shelby was one of the school's first students.

"We looked at other schools and programs and you're not going to top this one," Tim Hines said. "This school needs to be looked at nationwide."

Thanks to intensive one-on-one therapy, he said his daughter can now put sentences together and get food from the refrigerator - huge gains for a girl who was supposed to require full-time care in a special-needs facility.

"Six years ago, I would have been happy if she could just self-propel her wheelchair," Susan Hines said. "She's gotten one-on-one therapy since she's been here. From the second through eighth grade, her skills have gotten 200 percent better.

"She's happy. She's not as frustrated."

Of the school's 290 students, 57 have special needs, McCrimmon said.

The Hineses' other children, Brandi, 13, Sydney, 8, and Colten, 7, also attend the school. Their parents say the school has been as beneficial for them as it has been for Shelby.

"Brandi really needed extra-challenging things," Susan Hines said. "She's already completed her first credit of high school algebra because they could accommodate that here."

Money raised by the 2-mile Make A Difference Walk on April 26 will offset the costs of therapy for the school's special-needs students, McCrimmon said.

The walk starts at 9 a.m.

The Hineses say people who pledge money to walkers might not realize all the good they are doing.

"Shelby should go to high school next year, but we're electing to keep her here as long as the school can accommodate her," Susan Hines said. "If she can stay here until she's 21, we'll be happy."

MAKE A DIFFERENCE WALK

For information about Academy at the Farm and the first Make A Difference Walk, visit www.

academyatthe

farm.com.

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 948-4217 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

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