Woman's plight brings special-ed training to life

Cheryl Salyer's face appeared life-size and grainy on the pixilated screen of a Toshiba laptop.

Around the computer, four women huddled over notebooks and discussed learning disabilities with Salyer's head bobbing on the screen.

It's common these days for college students to tote a laptop to class. But Salyer goes to class in a laptop.

For the women studying to become special-education teachers, she is a real-life case study.

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On June 3, Salyer stared at the emergency room ceiling from a hospital gurney and decided that the car wreck was the final straw.

Salyer, 37, had enrolled a year earlier in an accelerated University of South Florida bachelor's degree program designed to prepare Pasco County instructional assistants to become special-education teachers.

The wreck occurred when she was on her way to take a test.

As doctors fretted over whether Salyer's right foot would have to be removed, Salyer decided to drop out.

Try telling a bunch of special-education teachers-to-be that you have to quit a course because of a disability.

"We now have a student who is disabled, who needs special education services," said classmate Dawn Hudak-Puckhaber, 33. "It's like all that theory went into practice."

After a week in the hospital and multiple surgeries to reconstruct her foot and ankle, Salyer returned to her Dade City home.

The next day, she sat in her maroon recliner and, through a Webcam her course mates and instructors had rigged up for her, Salyer participated in a class quiz.

Even in a haze of OxyContin and Percocet, she scored a 100.

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The classes are held at different schools in Pasco County. Whoever arrives first sets up their computer and beams Salyer into the classroom via Webcam.

In real time, you can watch her eat, blow her nose and address the random family member who approaches the recliner.

On the screen in front of her, Salyer sees whatever is in front of the classroom laptop's Webcam. She gets dizzy if it's moved around the room too much.

Sometimes the students decorate the laptop with beads and take photos of Salyer's face on the screen.

They say "excuse me" if they walk in front of the Webcam. They tell the computer when they change PowerPoint slides.

"It's so funny, it's like the laptop is Cheryl," said instructor Heather Brace, 28.

Of course, the setup doesn't always run smoothly. Anyone with a modem knows the Internet is never completely reliable. But if the connection is lost, someone calls Salyer and puts the lecture on speakerphone.

"Sometimes it's difficult. Technology has its flaws," Salyer said. "But I feel like I am getting the content. I feel like I am really not missing a whole lot."

If anything, she's learning more.

"The coursework has taught me different ways to deal with people who are different," Salyer said. "But being different, that puts a whole new light on it."

She now knows how scary it is riding a wheelchair lift onto a bus. And how people can be annoyingly over-accommodating when they deal with a disabled person — there's independence in opening the car door for yourself, Salyer said, even if you can't get into the vehicle without help.

The course ends in the spring. Salyer thinks her foot will be healed by then, and she hopes she'll be able to walk across the stage in May to receive her diploma.

If not, her classmates have a plan.

"We're going to drag her across the stage if we have to," said Hudak-Puckhaber.

Helen Anne Travis can be reached at htravis@sptimes.com or (352) 521-6518.