Hello, my name is Sarah Rockwell and I’m running for Alachua County School Board, District 3. I am a mom, an educator, and a disability rights advocate. As a mom with two children with disabilities, I know the difficult decisions parents have had to make during the last two years, especially families that had additional challenges before the pandemic.
I have been advocating for our kids for over 20 years. I have bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in Special Education from the University of Florida. My degrees focused on teaching young children with disabilities, teaching students with reading disabilities, and teaching Autistic students.
I am passionate about seeing all children succeed, and believe that making sure all students get a safe and quality education is the most important goal of any school district. I’m asking for your support and your vote for me, Sarah Rockwell, for Alachua County School Board.
Mission & Values
As a school board member, Dr. Rockwell will work toward:
- Access to technology and high speed internet for all students
- Access to youth programs and after school tutoring for all students
- A streamlined special education screening and evaluation process
- Consistent implementation of accommodations and services for students with disabilities.
Dr. Rockwell is also concerned with keeping ACPS a safe, enjoyable working environment for all faculty and staff. She believes that faculty and staff need to feel heard, supported, and appreciated. Dr. Rockwell wants to make sure that support staff such as transportation, food service, and custodial staff are part of the discussion because our schools could not operate without them. Dr. Rockwell is a member of the Democratic Public Education Caucus Of Florida and sits on their Exceptional Student Education Committee.
Follow our campaign on Facebook
About Sarah
Dr. Rockwell is a mother of two, an educator, and a disability rights advocate. Dr. Rockwell has bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in Special Education from the University of Florida with focuses on early childhood special education, reading disabilities, and autism.. Dr. Rockwell is passionate about seeing all children succeed, and ensuring that every student in Alachua county gets a safe and high quality education.
Dr. Rockwell has spent 20 years working in and advocating for our public schools, with a special emphasis on supporting children with disabilities. Previously, she worked as a Med-Waiver respite care provider for Autistic children. She was a substitute teacher in Miami-Dade County, where she worked primarily at the special education center school, Tropical Elementary. She taught pre-kindergarten special education in Levy County and a K-5 Autistic unit in Marion County. Dr. Rockwell worked as an educational diagnostician and consultant at UF’s Multidisciplinary Diagnostic and Training Program, where she assessed students with disabilities to determine how and why they were struggling, developed intervention plans to help them succeed, and trained their teachers in ways to support them. As a teaching assistant and adjunct at the University of Florida, she prepared pre-service teachers to work effectively with students with disabilities. She also worked as an advising specialist for education programs at Santa Fe College, encouraging and guiding pre-service teachers.
Dr. Rockwell believes in community and has years of advocacy work focused on the whole child. Currently, Dr. Rockwell is chair of the Board of Directors for First United Methodist Church of Gainesville Preschool, and is a member of the leadership team for Education Equity Advocates of Alachua County. She also leads a Girl Scout Brownie troop, and is a member of the Talbot Elementary School and Fort Clarke Middle School PTAs. She was a founding member and leader of Gainesville Babywearers, now Sunshine State Babywearing, Inc., and served as secretary of the Board of Directors for Babywearing International, Inc. As a Master Babywearing Educator, she presented at two international conferences on ways to make babywearing accessible to caregivers and young children with disabilities. She was also a founding member of Indivisible Gainesville and previously served as their accessibility coordinator, making sure events they held were accessible to community members with disabilities.
Dr. Rockwell has two children with disabilities who attended Alachua County Public Schools prior to the pandemic, but are currently being homeschooled due to medical risk factors. She understands the hard choices that parents have had to make during the pandemic. Her son is 11 years old and a sixth grader. He loves computer programming, reading, and creating worlds and languages for his science fiction novels. Her daughter is 8 years old and in second grade. She loves dolls, legos, and arts and crafts.
Passionate about schools? Help Sarah get elected!
Sign up for updates
Join our email list to stay up-to-date on events and opportunities to support Dr. Rockwell