Tears welled up in Migdalia Acevedo’s eyes as she spoke of the day when the school bus refused to take her physically and mentally challenged daughter, Abigail Acevedo, in because the brakes of her wheelchair were not working.

“I drove her to school and told [her teacher] about it,” Migdalia Acevedo said, as Abigail, a seventh-grader at Coral Springs Middle School, sat in the new wheelchair gifted to her by teachers and students of the school Friday. “It’s wonderful that you have people in the world who see a need and do not close their eyes to it.”

Students and teachers raised $1,900 in the the last three months, through a fundraiser the school’s National Junior Honor Society organized for Abigail. An anonymous donor pitched in the rest of the money for the wheelchair that cost $4,900.

Roxanne Rubiano, Abigail’s teacher, said it was a joint effort. “The students were so wonderful in their generosity towards my little girl," Rubiano said. "Sean Flignor, a seventh-grader, donated $200, his birthday money. A parent donated a bike to raffle off. A girl I met in the hallway told me she bought beads so that Abigail could get a new wheelchair. This is the perfect end to a perfect year."

Read the detailed story in the June 5 issue of the Coral Springs Forum.

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Senator Jeremy Ring, who represents people in Coral Springs and Parkland, chooses his words carefully every time he is asked to comment on the University Drive extension issue. This was no different Wednesday night, when the topic came up at a town hall meeting in Coral Springs.

"I won't take a stand," he said. "I represent people in both cities. But I believe [University Drive] will go through because of the proposed expansion of the casino in Coconut Creek."

The issue is close to a solution, Ring said. "I know people in Coral Springs want the road to go through, while people in Parkland and West Boca are opposed to it," he said. "Right now, Coral Springs does not have a tremendous amount of standing on the issue. I know various options are being looked at. They are talking about expanding State Road 7/U.S. 441."

Representative Ari Porth, who was also present at the meeting, was more vocal about his preference. "I represent Coral Springs, and I want to road to go through," he said.

Parkland officials are vehemently opposed to the idea of the road being extended to Palm Beach County. Members of the West Boca Community Council, too, are against the idea as they feel it will result in thousands of vehicles driving through residential areas dotted with schools.

Parkland has a lot to lose if the road is extended. The city's proposed annexation of nearly 2,000 acres of Palm Beach County land will take place only if the road extension idea is dropped permanently.

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Here is one story to warm your heart, coming straight from an elementary classroom in Coral Springs. Two Parkside Elementary School teachers, one a fourth-grade teacher and the other in charge of the autism programs in the school, have implemented a project that has, besides inspiring a movie, worked wonders for a bunch of autistic and regular students.

"The Perfect Fit," a 40-minute movie that captures the essence of the project, was premiered at the school last week. The students involved in the project were also given trophies.

The program took shape when Schulson, who was a special education teacher before she joined Parkside Elementary, opened her classroom door to eight autistic fourth and fifth grade students in Corri Lohr’s class. Marlene Sotelo, who works with the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD), worked with the teachers.

“The evening was a big success,” Schulson said. “People loved the movie. We also had an exhibition of self-sculptures made by the students. It felt great seeing the students so happy.”

For the detailed story, read the May 29 issue of the Coral Springs Forum.

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With the city seeing more than 1,800 foreclosures this year alone, Coral Springs officials last week discussed a law to accelerate the code enforcement process for vacant and abandoned properties. The proposed law also would establish minimum maintenance standards for properties owned by lenders.

The purpose of the ordinance is to prevent foreclosures from affecting property prices in the city. According to studies, every foreclosure affects property values in the neighborhood by 10 percent. Foreclosures also increase crime.

Besides accelerating the code enforcement process, the ordinance will create a new code section for vacant and abandoned properties. Lenders will be required to register with the city. The city will maintain single family homes on public rights of way to prevent neighborhood decay.

“The code enforcement process can take more than six months in the case of abandoned properties,” said Erdal Donmez, assistant city manager. “With the ordinance, we are trying to reduce the process to three months. Three months may sound like a long time, but we have to follow state statutes.

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Officials in Coral Springs and nearby cities have realized it makes sense to join hands for common good.

The Coral Springs City Commission approved an agreement with Margate, Parkland and Coconut Creek for regionalizing fire and rescue operations. When there's a problem, the closest unit will automatically respond.

The cooperative fire protection deal - in effect through September - provides aid for putting out fires, dive-rescue operations, vehicle extrication, communication and training for the four cities.

”The arrangement will eliminate duplication of services and allow for the sharing of resources and enhance emergency response times," a commission memo said. "Each party agrees that this agreement is an equitable exchange of services that shall not require monetary exchange for services."

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In Parkland, some residents are forgetting that an unlocked vehicle is a recipe for disaster.

Parkland Broward Sheriff's Office Chief Paul O'Connell, and his staff, have repeatedly asked residents to make sure they leave their vehicles locked, but people clearly aren't listening. A look at the city's police blotter confirms this, with eight burglaries involving unlocked cars happening in less than two weeks.

On May 10, someone got into a woman's car that had been left unlocked in the 6400 block of Northwest 57th Lane and stole sunglasses, credit cards and $10 in currency.

On May 14, a man got lucky when a few people informed police when they saw someone steal a leather coat from an unlocked car. The police caught the burglar and the car owner got his coat back.

The others who got punished for leaving their vehicles unlocked weren't as lucky:

On May 19, a man living in the 8000 block of Northwest 126th Terrace left his car unlocked and lost a GPS unit worth $750. The previous day, three burglaries occurred involving unlocked cars, one in the 7800 block of Northwest 105th Lane, another in the 8000 block of Northwest 125th Terrace and the third in the 12500 block of Northwest 67th Drive.

On May 20, a woman in the 12100 block of Northwest 77th Manor found how costly leaving a car unlocked can be when someone entered it and stole a GPS system worth $350. The same day, another burglary involving an unlocked car happened in the 9900 block of Northwest 58th Court.

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St. Andrew Catholic School students and teachers dedicated the school's new basketball court. The court was a present to the school from the graduating eighth grade class.

Parent Charlene El-Hage spearheaded the drive for the basketball court, and the eighth grade students raised the funds through fundraisers. St. Andrew Catholic Church Men’s Club helped make the court a reality when the club donated $15,000 they raised from a rained-out golf tournament.

The dedication ceremony began with Father George Puthusseril, pastor of St. Andrew Church in Coral Springs, blessing the court with holy water. Puthusseril then donned his shorts and joined the faculty team in a game against the eighth-graders. The students won the game, 29-20.

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As Broward County Spelling Bee champion Vincent Medina shook everyone's hands after being recognized by the Coral Springs City Commission, City Manager Mike Levinson decided to test the boy's spelling skills.

"He asked me to spell 'onomatopoeia.' It was easy for me," said Vincent, a seventh-grader at Ramblewood Middle School in Coral Springs . "I expected someone there to ask me to spell a word. It happens to me a lot."

Vincent said spelling words comes naturally to him.

"I have been doing this for a couple of years," he said. "I won the county competition at the elementary level when I was in fifth grade, but they wouldn't let me go to the nationals as I was too young."

In a few days, Vincent will get his chance to test his mettle at the national level, when he travels to Washington D.C. to take part in the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee from May 26 to 30.

"There is a lot more pressure now that I am competing against the world's best," he said.

"He is the best person I know when it comes to spellings," said Ryan Domitz, Vincent's friend. "He is smart and very good at studies. I think he is going to win the national competition."

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Residents of St. Andrew’s Towers in Coral Springs are coming to terms with life without Patricia Knapp, or Sister Pat as she is better known.

Knapp recently retired after 20 years at the retirement facility. Residents say it will mark the end of an era.

The residents threw a party for Knapp to celebrate her retirement. They tried keeping it a surprise from the 87-year old nun, but failed.

“They certainly tried their best, but you see certain things happen,” Knapp said. “After all, I have been here long enough to know when people are up to something...I will miss this place, but then, it is not just about St. Andrews Towers. It’s the parish, it’s Coral Springs.”

Knapp is a remarkable person in every sense of the term, said Louise Ames, president of the residents association at the retirement facility. “This is her 68th year of service as a nun. She is very kind and giving. She had quite a following here."

At the party, May Kerry, a resident, recited a poem she wrote for Knapp. “I wanted her to know how much she means to all of us,” Kerry said. “I wanted to give her something that she could take to the Mother House. We will miss her, but I am happy she is going to be with her own group.”

Cindy Heafy, who has known Knapp for more than 20 years, read an article she wrote about the nun’s life. Kim Sanecki, volunteer coordinator with the Coral Springs Police Department, presented a certificate of appreciation for her 14 years of service with the department.

“I am leaving with happy memories,” Knapp said. “I was interested in every one of them here. They felt I really cared for them. And I did.”

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Alicia Anfossi's dreams of making learning easier for children with cognitive disabilities has taken a definite shape.

The Coral Springs resident opened LearningRx in West Boca Raton. The center helps children overcome their learning struggles and improve their self-confidence,

“LearningRx is an international program created by Dr. Ken Gibson. This is the first center in South Florida,” Anfossi said. “We work with children having a variety of cognitive deficiencies like attention deficit disorder, ADHD, autism and reading problems. We help students performing poorly in schools. We also work with gifted students.”

The program has been effective with autistic children and those who are mentally challenged, Anfossi said.

“Cognitive skills are trainable. Here, we train the brain," she said. "Studies have found that there is a 10 to 15 percent improvement in such children. For a normal child, the average gain is about 20 percent. We work with children from age 4 up to the college level.”

Call the Boca Raton LearningRx Learning Center at 561-488-6188.

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Out of the box thinking often works wonders. Instead of waiting for children to visit the museum, Coral Springs Museum of Art staff members are taking art to classrooms in the community these days.

Recently, museum’s director of education Barry Treu and a few of his co-workers spent time at Maplewood Elementary School in Coral Springs, talking art and stoking the artistic talents of students. The main topic of discussion was artist George Rodrigue and his popular “Blue Dog” paintings that are now being exhibited at the museum.

“We had four to five staff members at the school for an hour from 9 a.m. every day last week,” Treu said. “We used pictures of the Blue Dog exhibit, which is very popular with kids and parents, on a digital projector and asked the students to be creative.”

“The whole idea was to make the kids think like artists. They were terrific. We plan to do more of this in the future," Treu said.

The art outreach program involved students in first through fifth grades, said Sherry Bees, school principal.

Parent volunteer Sonja Friedbauer said she hoped the program would bring more visitors to the museum.

“My kids have enjoyed going there. Unfortunately, many people in the city don’t know about the museum,” she said. “It’s a great place, but we will lose it if we don’t support it.”

For information about the Coral Springs Museum of Art, call 954-340-5000. Arun can be reached at 954-574-5339.

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PHOTO: From left, Thomas Gallerani and Cristian Rodriguez, both 9 of Coral Springs, are assisted by parent volunteer Tammy Valvano during the "Art Outreach to Maplewood" program. Staff photo/Kimberli DiMare
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Parkland officials have condemned the recent vandalism of the Chabad of Parkland and vowed to ensure such incidents are not repeated.

"We will not tolerate this kind of behavior," Mayor Michael Udine said. "We are an inclusive community. This is against everything that Parkland stands for. We are against all kinds of racial or religious hate crimes. The incident is deplorable."

Rabbi Yosef Biston, who leads the Chabad of Parkland congregation, Representative Martin Kiar and former mayor Robert Marks were present when the Udine read the resolution condemning the incident. The commission members later voted unanimously in support.

The incident happened last week. On Wednesday, a Jewish schoolboy was the first to see three swastikas spray-painted on the synagogue building on Loxahatchee Road. Someone also had spray painted "4 Hitler" on a nearby stop sign.

In a release, Sheriff's Office officials called the Parkland incident an "offensive hate crime of malicious vandalism" that probably occurred Tuesday night.

"We're looking at everything," said Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Alesia Russell. "We're not ruling anything out."

The FBI is investigating the incident. For details, read this report. Recently, the Chabad of Miami Beach in South Beach burned to the ground. The FBI is treating the Miami Beach fire as a possible hate crime.

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PHOTO: Rabbi Yossie Biston, left, meets with a law enforcement officer following the anti-Semitic vandalism of the Chabad of Parkland. The act took place on Yom HaShoah, the day when the Jewish community remembers the Holocaust. Submitted photo
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Dogs on chains could soon be a thing of the past in Coral Springs.

Scores of Forest Glen Middle School children, led by their teacher Lisa DosSantos, thronged City Hall in a bid to get the commission members to enact an ordinance that would ban tethering of dogs in the city.

"A chained dog can only watch as life goes by," DosSantos said. "It's inhuman to chain dogs out in extreme temperatures 24 hours a day. Other cities have introduced such an ordinance and we expect Coral Springs to do so too."

Although four students had signed up to speak, commissioner Ted Mena intervened after only one of them did. "The dog will have to wait no more," he said.

"We had someone fatally bitten by a dog some time ago," Mayor Scott Brook said. "We introduced an ordinance to address that issue. But a few people told us later that it was not the most appropriate one. This sounds like something to consider."

The commission later decided to study the issue before taking a decision.

DosSantos, who has two rescued dogs and cats in her house, said she was confident of the commission deciding favorably on the issue. "The parents that were at the commission meeting were as intent on having an ordinance as the students were," she said. "The commission will surely take that into consideration." POSTED IN: Coral Springs (142)

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