“…wanted to thank you all for truly thinking outside the box and being creative enough to work around some major learning roadblocks.”

Hi All, 

Just wanted to share with you a few nice things I experienced with ___ on Tuesday when I picked him up at school. He got in the car very excited and said he was using letters and numbers in Math class. I asked him what he was doing with the letters and he wasn't quite sure how to explain it to me so I asked him if he was doing Algebra? He said he thought so. I told him that was smart kid's math. He was beaming! We had extra time before his speech session so I showed him a "solving for x" equation and he was really motivated to work on the problem. He used a calculator but something really sparked interest so much that after speech we made a stop at Costco where he carried his binder in to the store and sat at a picnic table doing his own version of "letters and numbers" equations while I shopped. I didn't care if it was correct, I was just so happy that he was motivated about anything pertaining to math. I'm not sure if you are doing Algebra but he was a different kid. Unlike anything I've ever seen from him!

Also during the ride, I asked him about a stain he had on his pants. He said ___ spit on him while eating something and wrestling around. He shared they were at JFK Park filming a movie. What kind of movie? Macbeth! I remember hearing that Related Services was going to be doing something like this but had forgotten about it. I was so thrilled that ___ is still being exposed to this kind of learning even though his reading skills are not yet adequate to successfully navigate the content in the traditional form.

Anyway, wanted to thank you all for truly thinking outside the box and being creative enough to work around some major learning roadblocks. As a parent, I am grateful!

“I salute all the kids and professionals of CTC and to you as someone who has given such a wonderful gift to the society.”

Dear ---,

Often it is not a good idea to let go certain thoughts driven out of moment of realization. Not sure why this thought passed through my mind only yesterday while I have visited quite a few classroom settings in last four years or so. Was it because of the kids were older, was it because some of the sensory issues they are facing become more vivid as the kids grow older? I am not sure. What happened as an ultimate result in my mind was sort of dramatic. I felt the work I do as a living in my day to day life is quite trivial to what is being done in a small school called CTC. And to that argument probably many like me who think they do quite a complex and challenging job in their daily life may have a second thought if they see what I saw yesterday.

It was a classic example of how an almost impossible job can be undertaken as part of a profession and then carried out with absolute ease and proficiency day over day. What I saw is a few bright kids having their own set of ideas, unique needs, unique sensory challenges and communication bottlenecks fighting like brave teenagers to overcome so called “own world” to touch and feel all others. A true set of beautiful minds at work. And then there were a brave set of professionals working with them, helping them to achieve their true potential. I saw tremendous innovation to wriggle through all the obstacles to reach out to the kids and the equal effort from the kids to reach to them in turn. As Sir Isaac Newton said “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. I saw innovation, dynamicity, professionalism and dedication at its best. No state of art facilities, no overwhelming use of technology rather an audacious effort with modest infrastructure to achieve best of results. I salute all the kids and professionals of CTC and to you as someone who has given such a wonderful gift to the society.

Best Regards,

----’s Dad

 “His neurodevelopmental pediatrician told us that his transformation was a miracle and that she has never seen anything like it before.  It was a miracle. It was Celebrate the Children.”

I don't remember a lot from our first appointment with our son's neuro-developmental pediatrician.  I remember she said the words autism and institutionalization.   I remember looking at my husband and feeling powerless and small.  Everything else was like a Peanuts episode where words were muffled and instinguishable.  I just wanted to wake up and have it all be a dream.  My beautiful baby boy, who could not speak but who was so amazingly smart and sweet and wonderful seemed to be gone in an instant and in his place we had the word, "autism".

I remember being in the car after our first appointment and my husband said,  "He is still the same child he was yesterday, he just needs help and we are going to give it to him."

The first time I walked into Celebrate the Children, I was frustrated and scared that I couldn't find what Jake needed.  I remember walking into classroom after classroom and seeing children.  Not disabled children, not children with special needs, just children who were loved and believed in.  I remember the way these children beamed with pride, I remember talking to teachers who raved about how smart and amazing the children were and I wanted that for my child.

When Jake was accepted at Celebrate the Children, my husband and I felt like a weight had been taken off our shoulders.  We knew he would be loved, believed in, and given what he needed.

Words cannot describe the amazing miracle that Celebrate the Children was in our lives.  Jake was literally transformed during the two years he was at the school.  He has become a confident, social, and articulate child.  A child who thinks about the world and people around him.  The love Jake received from his teachers and the staff at Celebrate the Children makes me cry.  There was not a single person in the entire school who did not believe that he was the smartest, sweetest boy in the world.  The crazy thing is, they felt this way about every single one of their students.  I truly believe that his teacher, Paula, became his other mother.  The love and attention she showered upon him changed his life.  But, it was more than that.  I started doing floor time with Roberta and she became someone so special in my own life.  With the outside world I felt like I had to be strong and steadfast in my belief that Jake was going to get everything he needed, but with Roberta I was able to share my fears, my insecurities, my hopelessness.  I was able to breakdown and have doubts and cry.  She was Jake's floor time therapist, and my friend.  We felt that we were part of a family, a family that was giving Jake exactly what he needed.

Two years after starting at Celebrate the Children, Jake has graduated and attends a private school for children with auditory processing disorders and dyslexia.  The school is not an autistic school.  He is articulate, social, smart, funny, and sweet.   He is ahead academically and just acted as the "prince" in the school's production of "Snow White."   The neurodevelopmental pediatrician and all of his teachers say he will go to college and have a "normal" life.   His neurodevelopmental pediatrician told us that his transformation was a miracle and that she has never seen anything like it before.  It was a miracle.

It was Celebrate the Children.

Celebrate the Children literally changed Jake's life and it changed our family’s lives.   We have been so blessed and will always be so very, very thankful to the school and to Paula.