One ‘step’ closer : Aspiring cop Anthony McPherson starts school at age 14....ANTHONY McPherson will not glide effortlessly through life without much difficulty. The 14-year-old paraplegic's gateway to his educational goals was opened only last Tuesday morning when he attended school for the very first time, his custom-made wheelchair rolling on to the grounds of Windsor School of Special Education in Denbigh, Clarendon, a few minutes past eight.

BY MARSHALYN ROSE Observer writer rosem@jamaicaobserver.com  Monday, March 16, 2015    

ANTHONY McPherson will not glide effortlessly through life without much difficulty.

(L)Nadine Graham kisses her son on the cheek &
(R)Anthony’s McPherson’s class teacher Juliet Christian
 assists him to form the letters in the word ‘name’.
 (PHOTOS: GARFIELD ROBINSON)

The 14-year-old paraplegic's gateway to his educational goals was opened only last Tuesday morning when he attended school for the very first time, his custom-made wheelchair rolling on to the grounds of Windsor School of Special Education in Denbigh, Clarendon, a few minutes past eight. Behind him, his mother Nadine Graham smiled broadly as she guided him towards the group of students and teachers assembled beneath a tree where the morning's devotion was being conducted.

Following the publication of McPherson's story by the Jamaica Observer on December 15 last year, the Ministry of Education placed him at the school, which caters to physically and intellectually challenged students between six and 18 years old.

McPherson, whose head shakes involuntarily, was attired in the school's stipulated grey shirt and black pants, and his dreadlocks in a pigtail. He received an exuberant welcome from Neleshia Ferguson who oversees student affairs at the school. She rallied the students to perform the Windsor welcome song, signalling McPherson's entry into the school family.

McPherson correctly identifies
the numeral ‘8’.

Radiating with much happiness about his academic prospects, McPherson, who has been disabled since birth, expressed an unfettered ambition to become a wheelchair police officer. He is not daunted by the constraints of his physical disability, and he sees school as a platform to achieve mastery in literacy, numeracy and other skills for the adult world.

Neleshia Ferguson is animated as she leads students,
including McPherson, in the daily devotion.

"I am glad to go to school because I want to be a police. So I have to learn to read and write good first. Mi tired a di yard so mi want to meet new friends, but mi nuh want to play a school, mi want to be inna mi book to help mi to be a police," he told the Observer.

His class teacher, Juliet Christian, explained that Anthony was placed in her early childhood class to gauge his academic readiness. Of her 11 students, who -- except for McPherson -- range in age from nine to 12, eight are performing at the early childhood level due to the level of their intellectual impairment.more