LAKELAND | Carrie Moore drives into the parking lot of a business near the Lakeland Square mall, where a charter bus awaits on a Sunday afternoon.
Moore's three children disembark -- Cammie, 16; Michael, 14, who goes by his middle name, Boyd; and Ashley, 11 -- and give their mother a hug before disappearing into the bus. Seen through the windows, several sets of youthful hands soon flutter in excited conversations conducted in American Sign Language.
Such is the weekly routine for the Moore family of South Lakeland. The three children, who attend the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine, depart each Sunday afternoon, joining about a dozen other local students from the Lakeland area.
The Moore children return by bus each Friday to spend weekends with their parents, both of whom are also deaf.
Michael and Carrie Moore, both 44, said it's difficult to be away from their children during the week, but they consider the sacrifice worth it. (All quotes in this article came through a sign-language interpreter.)
"It's a big conflict because I don't want to send my children up there -- it's so far away," Carrie Moore said at the family's home. "I would love to watch them play their sports and volunteer, but it's so far away. That's the part that's disappointing. But the school there has a better education. They can be involved in deaf communitie
