After spending several years in the public education sector, four teachers are addressing a void in The Woodlands by opening a new school next fall for autistic students.
ASD Hope Inc. will open Texas Autism Academy in The Woodlands, but a specific location has not yet been selected. ASD Hope is a local nonprofit formed in 2015 by President Jane Walls, Vice President Cary Mollinedo, treasurer Shelinta Perez and board certified behavior analyst Ann Maddox.
“What ASD Hope is doing is coming in and filling a gap that currently exists in our community and in most communities,” said Amy Woods, president and scientific advisor of Families for Effective Autism Treatment-Houston. “We need to have scientifically-based, evidence-based teaching procedures applied across the entire educational model. It starts with early intervention, but we need to be able to address each one of these deficits.”
Most families affected by autism that live in The Woodlands area only have access to clinical settings for their children, forcing parents to home-school their children in addition to receiving therapy separately in a clinic, Perez said. Texas Autism Academy will strive to combine both needs under one roof, school officials said.
The institution will be a private school, integrating applied behavior analysis tactics throughout its curriculum, tailored for all students on the autism spectrum. The school will open with six classrooms and an enrollment of 42 students ages 4 to 8.
The entire staff will be trained in ABA techniques, and each classroom will have a teacher to student ratio of 2-to-7. Occupational, speech and physical therapy will also be available at the school for students who need those services.
Each year, Texas Autism Academy officials said they plan to grow the school by one grade level, until it has students ranging in age from 4 to 22. The school will eventually offer job training and junior college classes.
The founders plan to add inclusion and mainstream classrooms in the future and extracurricular classes for autistic community members.
The projected annual tuition for the academy will be between $20,000 and $22,000 per student.
“Eventually, we want to be able to open a charter school to serve families that can’t afford private school tuition,” Maddox said. “It should be accessible to everyone; not just people who have a certain insurance plan or a lot of money in their bank account.”
ASD Hope Inc. officials said the ultimate objective is to address this deficit in communities all over Texas. To begin their endeavor, however, they will begin in their own backyard.
“We want to serve as many kids as we can; we’re looking to the future,” Walls said.
For more information about ASD Hope and Texas Autism Academy, visit www.asdhope.com.
