Under a motion made by school board member Emma Violand-Sanchez, the board voted 4 to 1 on May 22, to use more than $271,000 of one-time funding to maintain the seven aide positions at the county’s secondary autism programs with about 60 students at the middle and high school grade levels.
“We have different students with different needs and assistants can provide valuable services in the classroom,” said Sanchez.
The one-time funding only guarantees that the autism program will continue with the one-teacher-and-two-specialized-aides model that caters to groups of about 10 students through next school year. After that, school officials and parents will have to figure out how to keep the program going once again.
“We are very pleased that the school board heard the support that exists for this program and responded to it,” said Gordon Whitman, a parent of a seventh grader in the secondary autism program at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, who helped organize parents to speak to the school board before it made its final decision on Thursday. “We’re looking forward to working with the school district to make sure that we can both protect and expand the program in the coming years.”
To fund the extended program, Sanchez’s motion called for funding to be pulled from a staff contingency fund and a one-time cost reserve. The motion also states that between now and over the course of the next school year, the board will work with the superintendent, staff and the community to revaluate and to make a report on the autism program.
“This is something that is not going to be dropped,” said Sanchez.
By next year, the school board will make sure that the superintendent gives a public briefing on the program’s report before the fiscal year 2016 proposed budget submission.
Despite the efforts of the school board to keep the program going for another year, parents are still concerned about what will happen after next year.
Cemma Tatem, the mother of an eighth grader in the Thomas Jefferson Middle School’s autism program says that her son will need the support of the assistants and current program model to be successful once he is in high school.
“I am concerned for next year and what will happen,” said Tatem. “The autism will not go away … it’s something that will follow him through his high school experience.”
Tatem says that she and her family moved to Arlington because of its secondary autism program. She is hoping that one year will give the school system enough time to figure out a way to continue the program’s funding after next year.
“It’s going to be an ongoing work in progress,” said Tatem.