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Category Archives: Schools
Update On School
We want to update our readers on how school is progressing for our children. We confess that this is a major hurdle that made us hesitate about relocating to Florida. How would the schools in Florida compare to those in Wisconsin? Our son is special needs and has an IEP in place, so we needed to make sure the level of services he receives in Florida would be comparable to what was established in his Wisconsin IEP.
We attended the open house the Thursday afternoon prior to the start of school. We made sure to inform all the teachers that our children were new, because quite frankly, it was a little overwhelming for them. We received the schedules, and then went room to room to meet the teachers. The school has three buildings; the first building is the office, but the other two buildings hold the classrooms. Here is a view from the bridge that connects the buildings:
Their new school is approximately twice as big as the middle school they would have attended in Wisconsin. On days when there is lightning, and let’s face it, this is Florida, so probably a weekly occurrence :-), they have “lightning lockdowns” where the students are not allowed to go between buildings if it is storming. It is interesting to note, however, that even though there are over 1,100 students attending here, the average class size is between 22-25 students, which is lower than what they would have experienced in Wisconsin.
We discovered that information is not given freely here to new families arriving. At open house, we questioned his advisory teacher, and discovered that Ben was just to be dropped off at school. At this point in time, we were grateful that Catie attended the same school, as she is able to walk Ben to his aide. However, we were not informed exactly how long the line gets at pick-up time. We’ve discovered that we need to leave the house at 3:15 for a 4:00 dismissal time, just to stake our place in line. It would have been nice to have learned this information at open house, and thus help Ben avoid the couple of meltdowns he had while waiting for us to progress through the line that first day.
Overall we feel school is going well for the children. We’ve had a couple of bumps with Ben, but they’ve been easily resolved, and we feel his teachers are committed to making sure he succeeds. Catie was able to get into a chorus class, which she was thrilled with. We do wish that orchestra was offered here, as Catie plays the violin, but we knew before we moved that it was not, and of the two, chorus is a better option. Catie has a gift for singing and aspires one day to pursue this professionally. The school is monitored closely: identification is required to pick your child up from school early–they do check it against the computer records and require a signature– and a note is required for an excused absence upon return to the school. A little more strict than what we’re used to, but it’s all good.
If you are planning to relocate to Florida, we recommend researching and contacting the schools prior to your move, to get a feel of what they might be like. You can usually tell from contact with the staff the atmosphere of the school.
School Days
We finalized the registration for both children in the middle school today, and just wanted to share our experiences for other families who may be moving to the Lake County area. We have links on our website across the top relating to different forms that are needed, but we will also include them in this blog for your convenience.
The following documents are required for out-of-state and new registrations:
- Proof of Residence (Utility bill, Rental/Purchase Agreement)
- Birth Certificate
- Social Security Card
- Physical Exam within the last calender year
- Immunization record
- Last Report Card/or Current Grades
- FCAT Scores/or State Testing
The physical exam can be completed out of state; we printed out the form and had our children’s pediatrican fill it out. In regards to the immunization record, Florida requires that all immunizations be placed on a blue form, Form DH 680. Only the health department and Florida physicians can do this; it is not a downloadable form. Please click here for more information.
We opted to have ours completed at the Health Department. There is a temporary location in Clermont where we were able to drop off the vaccination records last week, and then pick them up this morning, for a small fee of ten dollars per record completed. We also had the option of driving to Eustis (about a 35 minute drive one-way) and receiving the record the same day. Click here for the Lake County Health Department website.
Our children are attending the schools in the district in which they reside. To find out where your address lies, click here for address look-up/boundary zones information. This link lists a directory of all the schools in Lake County, and provides names, addresses, phone numbers and website information. Registration forms may be available online; ours were but there are some schools that do not have them available as a download. There is a school choice option that allows you to place your children in schools outside of your assigned district, but as our children are attending an “A” rated school we felt it was not necessary to transfer out. It is quite an unknown variable, sending your children to schools you know little about, and it could be that the school you decide to use school-choice for is not as good as the school your children would normally attend. Without knowing the area, you are taking a calculated risk.
For disabled students and new this year for students with a 504 plan is the McKay Scholarship, a tuition voucher that can pay tuition for private schools if parents wish to opt out of public schooling. It may be an option we decide to utilize for our son in the future, but we’ve heard positive comments about the high school he is on track to attend, so we will wait and see; we have a couple of years before we need to make that decision.
Our children do not need to wear uniforms to school, but there are some schools in Lake County that do require them. We receive school updates from the Orlando-Sentinel specific to our area, and it appears to be on track that uniforms may be required county-wide next year.
To register our children, we brought in the registration forms and supporting documents. It will save some time if you provide a photocopy of the documents; we did not need to show the originals. We have a list of general supplies that are needed for school, but we have orientation on Thursday and will receive the teacher’s lists then. It’s a little strange not to be shopping for school until the weekend before, as normally in Wisconsin everything is bought in July, and it’s really strange for them to be starting in August (normally after Labor Day), but they’ll really enjoying having an extended winter vacation when they will actually be able to go out and enjoy the weather!
The Movers Came And Left Us Boxes
Which was the whole idea, of course! We weren’t sure if the huge tractor-trailer was going to make it into the complex, but there is a back entrance and it worked out just fine. They unloaded in less time than it took to load the truck, so it was quite nice for it to be done in under three hours. Of course now we are surrounded by boxes; but we are able to find what we need by referring to our list. What a time saver that has been! The movers commented on how well packed the boxes were, and were a little surprised at how little furniture we brought with us.
Looking back I believe we’re both regretting the decision to not move our bed. We chose to do this because the mattress was not comfortable anymore, and it made financial sense to buy new mattresses when we arrived. The airbed was a practical solution. However, the airbed did not hold up its end of the bargain, and it blew a hole Wednesday night; repeated efforts to fix it with duct tape only made the hole bigger. So we’ve been sleeping on the floor for right now, as our expected expenses were much larger than we anticipated (details in blog post coming), and we are unable to return the airbed as it was purchased in a store that exists only in the Midwest. We were able to unearth Ben and Catie’s body pillows, in the hope that laying on them will prove to be a little more comfier than the floor. We both feel, however, that the temporary discomfort of sleeping on the floor is just a minor blip. We love living in Florida; we have found most people to be very friendly and nice and willing to help out.
So today we’ve been slowly unpacking boxes and trying to make our apartment our home. Catie has done an awesome job with her room, though we’ve discovered that Brighthouse will need to come back, because the cable outlet in her room is not functional. The kitchen, although small, has some very roomy cabinets, so we’re confident that everything will fit. We’re thankful there are recyclable dumpsters in the back, which allows us to easily dispose of our cardboard boxes and packing paper. It seems a little “un-green” to not Freecycle them, but with the gated entrance it’s not a viable option.
We also drove around the city of Clermont to sightsee and locate the public library and the middle school. It was too late in the afternoon to go to the library, but we will do that during the week to check it out. We took what we thought were pictures of the area, but they ended up being videos instead, so we will go around again later and take pictures and post to the blog.
We discovered our local Winn-Dixie grocery store, and we were quite impressed by it. Winn-Dixie does have a saver card (the only one of the three main grocery stores to have one), and we probably will frequent this store quite a lot. We were originally put off by Winn-Dixie because we had visited one in the Kissimmee area two years ago while on vacation and were not impressed. The store in Clermont, however, is fairly nice and the prices are not unreasonable.
After dinner we took time to swim in the pool, which is so nice to be able to do that. Ben is turning into a regular little fish, and I”m sure it will not be long before Catie is as well. Tomorrow morning we will visit a church that is one of our top choices, and are really looking forward to getting settled into a church close to home.
Thoughts.
I am excited for what the future will bring. It continues to amaze me that one man’s vision could possibly impact so many people in the world. Thank you, Walt Disney! As you know our son Ben is autistic, but he has possibly the greatest imagination of any child or adult I know. He is constantly designing concepts for new worlds, new cities and infrastructures and it makes me wonder: what if he had the foresight to create Ben Vitek World? What would it be like? Ben is our “imagineer” and absolutely loves to draw. I can’t even begin to count how many reams of paper we have gone through over the years, but art has given him the ability to understand and make sense of his world through his drawings.
Confession time. We have never been to The Magic of Disney Animation at the Studios. It didn’t make our list during any of the three trips, and I think back as to why, and I’m sure time was the primary reason. When you vacation, you are limited in what you can experience, and unfortunately some attractions never made the cut. However, as interested as Ben is in drawing, you would think it would have entered our minds at one point! One of the joys of living so close to Walt Disney World is we will have the opportunity to do all the things we never had time for before. Ben is so looking forward to participating in this at the Studios.
It makes me think of all the different career opportunities that will be available to the kids in Florida that are simply not an option in Wisconsin. Walt Disney World in itself offers a multitude of employment opportunities, but even if you look beyond the world of the mouse, careers in zoology or marine biology are a feasible option for Catie to pursue, as she is quite the animal lover. For sixth grade Catie attended a virtual school, and I could only help but think how much more varied and enriched the experience would have been if we had lived in Florida, and had the opportunity to experience more science field trips and hands-on learning.
We are fortunate and blessed to have the children attending a public school that is A rated; moving into a city and neighborhood we don’t know is always a gamble, but we feel secure in the path we have chosen for this year. Catie will be in high school next year, and the particular high school she is on track to attend doesn’t rate as high, so we will need to examine the best option for her.
Both kids are really excited about the move next week, and we are so thankful for that as well. If we had to do it over, we would choose to move earlier in the summer, as they will have less than a month of summer vacation left once we arrive; school starts August 22. It’s wild to believe it’s already mid-July; school supplies are out in full force here and it’s a little odd not to be buying them or even thinking about what might be needed.
As I close my thoughts, it is my hope and prayer that friends in our Disney community recognize that we are not infringing on other blogs, and that our content is unique to our family. We believe this is in the spirit of what Walt Disney would want. We intend to keep this blog active, but it will remain a blog dedicated to the ins and outs of moving to a new city, and the challenges and joys we face there.
Sending pixie dust to all our readers,
Jen
Wishes And Pixie Dust 