Governor Holds Breakfast Meeting to Discuss Special Needs, Autism

Gov. Chris Christie invited 60 professionals and parents to Drumthwacket, the Governor's Mansion in Princeton, April 11, for a breakfast meeting to discuss issues surrounding the needs of children and adults with special needs, particularly Autism. 

April is Autism Awareness Month and the Drumthwacket residence is bathed in blue lights for the entire month to heighten people's awareness of Autism. 

Carolann Garafola, executive director of Mt. Bethel Village, was invited to participate in this event.

During the breakfast, one parent discussed the need for fairly distributed school funding for every town, especially for special education needs.  Governor Christie indicated that $20 billion in school funding went from the taxpayers, through the State of New Jersey and back to the schools this year, the most money ever sent back in the history of the state. However, he said that of the $20 billion, $9 billion alone goes to only five schools and they are the Abbott District schools.

For example, the cost for educating a child in Newark, based on the money sent back to Newark is $30,000 per year, per pupil.  Thus, the other remaining towns must make up what they need by taxing the local residents. 

His concern is that he is waiting to appoint two justices to the Supreme Court and right now, those appointments are held up. His conclusion is that the Supreme Court in New Jersey is presently making decisions on where school funding goes and how it is distributed.

Families and professionals were also concerned about employability of those with special needs, the need for housing for the 8,000 adults presently in need of a place to live, adult services such as Mt. Bethel Village, evidence-based programs for children and adults, and funding for after school programs.

Parents expressed the concern that their teenagers with special needs cannot go home to an empty house and, therefore, are critically in need of after school programs.  If these programs are not available, parents cannot continue to work at full-time jobs and this has an impact on the economy. 

There was extensive discussion about what schools and programs could do to connect with companies to bring "work" experiences to the programs, such as the following companies who are bring work to the Reed Academy in Bergen County. This school has a relationship with the Marriott Hotel Company, Fed Ex, and UPS in order to teach skills to their older teenagers to prepare for the world of work. 

The theme of the breakfast meeting, questions and answers by Gov. Christie was that he is strongly committed to working with families to provide the financial assistance for school programs and adult programs and he wants to continue to hold such meetings to bring together leaders such as those who were at this event. 

In addition to Mrs. Garafola, some of the following leaders included Lesley Long, director of Housing from Autism Speaks; Robert Titus, director of policy for Autism NJ; Dr. Caroline Eggerding, pediatric neurologist at Cooper Hospital's Child Development Center; Paul Cimins of Autism Radio; Bill Schmalz of EPIC, a private school in Bergen County; Jill Nadison, executive director of the Reed Academy, private school in Bergen County and many, many parents.