- November 23, 2024
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About two weeks ago, Nick Kennerly and his friend, Kyle Heffner, were plastered on the front page of the Sports section of the Palm Coast Observer as they battled an 80-pound tarpon off the Flagler Beach Pier.
After about a 1.5-hour fight, the fish Nick hooked into became his. (He later released the fish after snapping a few pictures.)
Fishing off the pier wasn’t a one-time thing for Nick, though.
It’s what he does in his spare time, said his mother, Toni Rapicka.
But much like the long fight with the tarpon, Nick, a 15-year-old sophomore at Matanzas High School, fights his battles every day.
Especially in the classroom.
In third grade, doctors diagnosed Nick with dyslexia. He has struggled since and barely passed his freshman year. Because of the dyslexia, he’s unable to comprehend what he reads because the words appear blurry or he simply can’t understand what the word is.
Nick has told his mother that if he can’t finally start to learn what he’s being taught in school by the time he turns 16, he wants to quit school.
And so, his mother has a plan.
She hopes to raise $30,000 to send Nick to a specialty school: the Kildonan Boarding School for Dysleia and Learning Disabilities, located in Amenia, N.Y.
The school offers one-to-one Orton-Gillingham tutoring, an instructional approach intended primarily for use with people who have difficulty with reading, spelling and writing associated with dyslexia.
But Rapicka, who is a nurse and a single mom of Nick and his older sister, said the price to send her son to the specialty school is such a large hurdle.
She said she has applied for loans, but she still needs to raise more money.
School in Flagler County begins in about two weeks, but Rapicka is hoping to enroll Nick in the boarding school by the end of the month if she can raise enough money.
“I’m trying to find whatever I can,” she said, adding that even though he gets unlimited time in school, he’s still struggling. “It’s just heartbreaking to say ... I’m just going to enroll him again in this school as he fails.”
Rapicka knows time is running out, but she hasn’t given up hope. Not yet, at least.
“Whatever works — whatever avenue works — is what I will take,” Rapicka said. “I’m willing to do anything.”
To help Nick, go to http://www.indiegogo.com/NickslifewithDyslexia.
“It would mean the world,” Rapicka said.
