Simon Earle

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Simon Earle, M.A., obtained his Master's degree in varying exceptionalities from the University of South Florida. He is currently a second year doctoral student in the Urban Special Education program at the University of South Florida. Mr. Earle has served as a graduate teaching assistant for two semesters in the department of special education. His career goals include becoming a teacher educator/researcher and conducting research around the areas of minority disproportionality in special education.

His teaching experience includes working three years at the middle school level in Hillsborough County Public Schools. Simon has taught students with severe emotional disturbance and emotional and behavioral disorders. He also has administrative experience as the department head of the special education department as well as sponsoring the student council.

During the 2001-02 academic year, Mr. Earle was engaged in applied research at Memorial Middle School in Tampa, Florida. Memorial is a former Title I school, which received a school grade of 'C' for the 2001-02 school year. The total school population is 1,100 and the ethnic makeup of students are as follows: Latino - 41%, African American - 38%, European American - 15%, other - 6%. He also looked at the in-school and out-of-school suspension rates of African Americans. In both categories African American students represented a larger percentage than their total school population (43% of ISS and 58 percent of OSS, according to data gathered between August 8, 2001 and April 16, 2002).