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Brick Schools Net Half-Million For Special Needs Students
By Catherine Snipe
Left hanging by the state earlier this year, Brick now has the money officials had expected would have been a given for the township: grant monies targeting disability focused endeavors.
With the money now forthcoming, a $500,000 grant will go toward school services for students who normally would have been bused elsewhere.
School Board President Brian DeLuca told the township council this week that the money would greatly impact how the district serves children with disabilities.
Every dollar goes toward a student with a disability, DeLuca said. "It's to draw children back into our district," he said.
To send children out of district costs $40,000 to $50,000 per student for that child's busing, tuition and other costs. Keeping those students in-district can mean savings for the school district, and hence the taxpayers.
To do so, the home district must provide the services needed to work with special needs children. With the Educational Enrichment Center, the Brick Township School District has a building of its own to educate special needs students.
Special education parents were worried the EEC could be shut down this year, but previous board President Sharon Kight said the proposal was never on the table. The building, on Hendrickson Avenue, opened in 2004 with an enrollment of 21.
DeLuca said he hopes the enrollment will grow, and the grant will help do that. "We're going to make the EEC the best it can be."
Currently, the EEC serves special needs children and adult life-skills classes. Without the program, those enrolled would be bused elsewhere - possibly with astronomical costs, school district officials said.
"We can do the same job in house and save a large amount of dollars," DeLuca said.
Members of the township council were also pleased to hear of the grant. Councilwoman Ruthanne Scaturro announced she had received a letter confirming the amount as $500,000. That means Brick received one of the higher amounts given out by the state. Nearby, towns such as Brielle and Point Pleasant won collaborative grant moneys.
The grant was treated as a victory for the district, as earlier this year it received zero dollars in another round of funding. While the state Department of Education handed out $15 million in autism grant money, Brick had received none - a shock in a community closely-linked with autism. Elsewhere, 55 school districts throughout the state received state funding, according to the state Department of Education.
In 1999, Brick was studied to see if a so-called autism cluster existed. The Centers for Disease Control and the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry came to the township to look into why 40 cases of autism appeared here, at what U.S. health officials said was about 10 times above average.
But now after a delay of sorts, the money assumed to be inevitable is here. The funds are to expand or enhance public school programs and services for students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, and came as part of Gov. Jon S. Corzine's Initiative on Autism in the 2007 state budget.
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