PORT ST. LUCIE — A lock on the door was the only notice Jessica Rufo got that Hayes World Day Care & Learning Center had closed.

Rufo, a St. Lucie County School District employee, is keeping her 3-year-old daughter at home for the summer, but had left Hayes World about $500 to hold a spot for Elizabeth in the fall. Driving by the Darwin Boulevard center this weekend, Rufo noticed locks on the door.

A message on Hayes World’s phone service said the day-care center is “temporarily closed,” but offered no other information.
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PORT ST. LUCIE — Put a kid on a bike on a race track sprinkled with jumps, lumps and bumps, and you’re likely to have one happy kid. Or teenager. Or adult, for that matter.

A new bicycle track for riders who love speeding through 1,000 feet of tricky obstacles is expected to open near Crosstown Parkway and Interstate 95 in Port St. Lucie in October. (more…)

John Christopher Woods is hoping his photos and additional information about his birth parents he has been able to extract from the Florida Department of Children and Families will trigger memories in someone on the Treasure Coast, maybe even his mother or siblings.

Woods, born Jan. 16, 1961, at Martin Memorial Hospital, said he feels he is creeping closer to identifying and perhaps meeting his birth mother, but her name and location are still elusive. His mother was 24 when she gave birth to him and then gave him up for adoption. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — A father at a house where 10 children were suspected of living in filth pleaded no contest Monday to a child neglect charge.

Rupert Anthony Thompson, 32, father of some of the children and stepfather of others, was arrested in October 2008 after authorities say they found feces, flies, roaches, trash, dirty diapers, rotting food, urine and exposed electrical outlets in the house in the 1100 block of Jasmine Avenue. The children ranged in age from 4 months to 12 years.

As part of a plea agreement, the State Attorney’s Office will recommend Thompson receive two years of probation when he’s sentenced by Circuit Judge Larry Schack. Sentencing is scheduled Aug. 19.

Staff report

Before incoming seventh-graders step into their first classes this fall, they must brave the sting of a newly required vaccine against whooping cough and two other diseases.

Local health departments are offering the Tdap vaccination against tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis (whooping cough) this summer at health clinics or at residents’ request so students can be prepared for the start of school.

The new state requirement for students to take the vaccine before entering the seventh grade stems from concerns that adolescents and adults immunized against whooping cough in infancy are contracting the disease when they’re older. Before this year, the vaccine for adolescents, licensed in 2005, was suggested but not required. Counties have offered the vaccine every year.
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MIAMI — After a long and exhaustive investigation, the deaths of two infants and the sickening of a third at Miami Children’s Hospital is a medical mystery.

The infants, born extremely prematurely, their immune systems compromised, were in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit when two of them died of a common yet lethal bacterium in March. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Shirley Littlefield’s eyes filled with tears as she picked up her daughter, third-grader Elizabeth, from what was truly her last day of school at Port St. Lucie Elementary.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Littlefield said. “We’re getting split up, and it hurts.”

The 34-year-old building closed its doors to students, teachers and staff on Wednesday as part of a plan to deal with St. Lucie County School District budget constraints.

Closing the school, as well as Southbend K-8 and Anglewood Center, which taught pregnant teens, is expected to save $30 million next year. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — A registered sex offender and his girlfriend were arrested Tuesday following allegations that they beat an 11-year-old girl and her siblings, according to records released Wednesday.

The 11-year-old girl told sheriff’s investigators John Louis Cooper, 30, burned her with a cigarette lighter. She said she feared being raped by Cooper because he “raped a 13-year-old girl before,” records show.

Cooper was convicted in 2002 of lewd act on a minor less than 16 and is a registered sex offender because of it, records show.

The girl said Cooper and his 32-year-old girlfriend, Kathy Ann Carson, push them around and punch her and her 9-year-old brother “all the time,” according to the report.

The brother had an injury on his finger he said was caused by Cooper purposely burning him with a lighter, records show.

The elder girl said Cooper punches her in the chest when she misbehaves, the records show. The boy said he has difficulty with bed-wetting and Cooper punches him in the chest because of it. The boy also was found to have a “fungal scalp infection” that had been present for months.

Cooper faces two counts of child abuse, and Carson was arrested on a single child abuse charge. Carson’s charge stems from alleged abuse on a 4-year-old girl. A doctor examined the 4-year-old girl and the two older children and founds signs of abuse or neglect.

Cooper and his girlfriend live in the 5100 block of La Salle Street.

By Will Greenlee, TCPalm.com

PORT ST. LUCIE — One year ago, a 6-year-old autistic boy was brought to the front of his classroom. He left moments later feeling like an outcast.

For many, he became a symbol of how children with autism are mistreated and misunderstood.

Some experts say the case of Alex Barton, who was voted out of his kindergarten classroom 14-to-2, brought about change and awareness of how autistic children are educated. Others say there still is a long way to go. (more…)

JENSEN BEACH — More than 300 lacrosse supporters, some waving sticks and some wearing jerseys, attended Tuesday’s Martin County School Board meeting to ask the School Board to consider adding lacrosse into the school district.

Even though a rule change, which would broaden the number of sports that could become athletic clubs in the county’s high school including lacrosse, was removed from the agenda that didn’t stop hundreds of lacrosse supporters from coming out to the meeting at Jensen Beach High.

“Let these kids play. Let them play lacrosse in the county high schools,” said Chris Anderson, president of the Martin County Pioneer Lacrosse youth league.
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