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The first week he rode the bus to school was tough for his mother.But for Nickolas Sills, 6, it was a victory.


Nick suffered a massive brain hemorrhage at birth, resulting in severe brain damage and cerebral palsy. Though he can see objects up to 5 feet away with his glasses, he is legally blind. He also has an aggression disorder, some characteristics of autism, and seizures. To ride the bus to H.L. Johnson Elementary School, Nick spent three years at Potentials Charter School, a Riviera Beach school for children ages 3 to 10 who are unable to walk or talk.Now he can do both."They weren't expecting him to live past 1. ... but he's still here. He's always proving everybody wrong," said his mother, Amy Burch Reynolds, 27.Nick is now a happy, social little boy who shares a cozy home near Royal Palm Beach with his mother, stepfather, Jonathan Reynolds, brother, Jason Kristian, 3, stepbrother Ender Reynolds, 5, a dog and five cats.On a recent afternoon, Nick was glued to the TV, watching one of his favorite DVDs, The Muppet Show. He looked up only to say "Hello!" to a visitor. Meanwhile, his brothers dressed in superhero costumes and ran through the living room. Reynolds, nine weeks pregnant, rests on the sofa in pink mouse slippers while Jonathan tends to the kids.But when Nick was born, Reynolds was alone.She sought specialists, therapists and the Easter Seals Child Development Center in West Palm Beach. When Nick got too old for his program at Easter Seals, Reynolds stumbled upon Potentials.The Arc of Palm Beach County, which provides services for people with developmental and mental disabilities, opened Potentials in 1998. The school now serves 30 students in Riviera Beach and 15 at a second school in Boca Raton.Nick had a vocabulary of 8 to 10 words and was in a wheelchair when he started at Potentials in 2003. Some children do not walk because their muscles are tightly contracted, making movement difficult. That wasn't Nick's issue, said Mary Pengelley, his physical therapist at Potentials."He did not choose to be on his feet," Pengelley said. "It was often a behavioral thing."His classroom had a teacher, several aides, a physical therapist, a speech therapist and an occupational therapist every day. Nick's therapy was folded into the curriculum, and the silent little boy became a chatterbox, Pengelley said."We set high expectations. We look for children to be as independent as possible," Pengelley said. "The day they start school here, they are no longer diapered. They have to stand, have to balance, wash their hands, feed themselves."The staff also recognized that progress comes slowly."We're not asking them to go 100 feet, but a few steps," she said. "Every day it's more and more and more."Because it is a public charter school, Potentials receives state funds, but grants and fundraising help pay for the therapy. The school also helped Reynolds buy a wheelchair and a walker.Reynolds saw the dedication of the staff personally because she volunteered at least twice a month, leading art projects for Nick's class."Whatever they did at school that I could do, I did at home," Reynolds said.Nick's vocabulary has increased to 27 words, and he gets around with a walker and leg braces that help straighten his feet and stabilize his ankles.This spring, Potentials instructors told Reynolds some good news: Nick was ready to graduate.But she was "scared out of her mind" that Nick would regress without the staff's attention, she said. Eventually, she found a good program at H.L. Johnson. Nick was placed in a classroom with children of different ages but similar abilities."He was a little unhappy at first, but the awesome thing about the staff at The Arc was they came to his new school a couple days a week. They helped him big-time with the transition," Reynolds said.He still receives physical, occupational, speech, language and vision therapy at school, and additional therapy at home, Reynolds said.This fall Nick suffered a setback, missing two months of school with a new set of seizures, but he is back in class and getting ready to celebrate his birthday Dec. 14.And while Nick is at school, Reynolds occasionally volunteers at Potentials."I love it. ... Because they helped me so much, that's something I can do to give back," she said. "When you have a busy life, it's not so much to add another thing to the chaotic-ness, especially something like that."

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