Hammond embarks on final year

By Staff
Kim West
Anthony Hammond has taken the path less traveled to his senior year at Russellville High School, which resumed classes yesterday.
Hammond, 20, spent his first day back at school like any other student – he rode the school bus, met his new teachers and classmates and enjoyed a sandwich in the lunchroom.
But not many of Hammond's peers have overcome the obstacles he has faced since childhood.
Hammond, one of 56 special education students at Russellville, was born with a form of cancer known as neural blastoma and underwent chemotherapy treatment. He also has cerebral palsy, which causes him to rely on a walker or wheelchair, and is legally blind from a virus he contracted as an infant.
"He had to have chemo at 5 days old until he was six months," said his mother, LeNaye Jewson. "If it hadn't been detected, he wouldn't have made it to his second birthday."
Hammond moved to Franklin County in December 2006 from Florida, and he previously lived in Ohio and Wisconsin, where he grew up. Along the way, he attended public schools but was unable to enroll locally until this year.
After spending the spring semester at the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega, Hammond spent the summer attending five weeks of classes provided by the Franklin County school system after an arbitrator ordered the county and city school systems to each provide a summer of school services.
Hammond, who moved from the county to the city last year, attempted last week to enroll in the same Franklin County school that his younger brother, Christopher, has attended since 2006 but wasn't allowed to register.
"By mutual agreement, Russellville doesn't take kids in the county, and (the county) doesn't take kids that live in the city," said Bill Moss, superintendent of Franklin County schools. "I have always left (enrollment decisions) up to the principal, and I recommend that they don't pick and choose students that don't live in the county because it's unfair."
But Hammond was accepted by the city school system Monday and is enrolled in adaptive weightlifting, chorus, science and life skill courses at Russellville, which follows the four-block schedule.
"It's going to take a little while to get everything in place, and it will take a couple of weeks to write the new (individualized education plan), but I think because of what happened last year, they are going to do everything they can to help him graduate and make school pleasant," Jewson said. "Christopher is in eleventh grade and Anthony is in twelfth grade, and they have not been in school together for four years. It would have meant a lot for them to be in school together but it would have been hard to move Christopher into a new school since he's (a junior)."
George Harper, the special education coordinator for Russellville city schools, said the system is happy to have Anthony as a student.
"It was a misunderstanding last year," Harper said. "We're glad to serve Anthony and we're putting together all the resources we can to make his senior year a good one. He is a personable young man, and I look forward to having him at school this year.
"He's going to have some academic work and some basic life skills because we're trying to prepare him for life after high school as with all of our students. We'd like to see what he can do and not focus on what he can't do because he has a lot of learning potential, and we want to tap in on that."
Jewson said her oldest son, who wants to become a radio DJ, loves school and enjoys being around his peers.
"He has suffered from day one but he's a great kid," Jewson said. "He loves to talk and listen to music, and he loves life. He has always been taught that he is like everyone else – he has never been taught to think that he has a disability."