Point Boro High School Students Saluted For 'Lunch Buddy App'

Point Pleasant Boro High School teacher Nick Gattuso’s students recently added yet another award to their already impressive list of achievements when the app “Lunch Buddy,” created by a group of four of his students, was named First Place winner in the Fourth Congressional District’s 2017 Congressional App Challenge.

The Congressional App Challenge is a competition aimed at encouraging U.S. high school students to learn how to code by creating their own applications. One-hundred-ninety-three congressional districts in 43 states participate in the Challenge that is intended to highlight the value of computer science and STEM education, among them is New Jersey’s own 4th District, represented by Rep. Chris Smith, according to school officials.

Representatives from Congressman Smith’s office recently visited Point Pleasant Borough High School, where they presented app designers Adrian Wittmann, Luke Boylan, Theresa Cardone and Jaspreet Kaur with certificates in honor of their app that was designed to assist Life Skills students with finding classmates to sit with at lunchtime.

“The PALS applications as well as the Lunch Buddy app perfectly align with the Life Skills program’s goal of teaching students with multiple disabilities vocational sufficiency while promoting community integration between them and their non-disabled peers,” said Supervisor of Pupil Personnel Services Rita Miller. “These apps provide our students with multiple disabilities with new ways to achieve their potential, ultimately helping them to become independent members of the community.

“Plus, the development of the apps continues to facilitate increased interaction between our students,” she said. “This interaction is central to the inclusive school climate that has been established here in the Point Pleasant School District.”

In addition to receiving a $250 credit for Amazon Web Service to be split among the Congressional App Challenge winners, the students along with Gattuso were invited to attend the “House of Code” App Challenge Reception in Washington DC. At the reception, they’ll have the opportunity to demo their app for tech industry leaders as well as members of Congress!

Smith honored them with remarks from the floor this past week:

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate four exceptional students from New Jersey’s Point Pleasant Borough High School—Luke Boylan, Theresa Cardone, Jaspreet Kaur, and Adrian Wittmann—for their amazing app designed to ensure that their classmates with special needs have a lunch buddy to build friendships, share conversation, laugh or talk about each other’s hopes and dreams.

Lunch Buddy app helps make all participating students more understanding, knowledgeable, kind and empathetic.

Lunch Buddy app helps all participating students see the world from each other’s eyes. Everyone has good days and bad, strengths and weaknesses, and things we want to talk about to a friend.

For many, high school can be difficult and lonely.

Lunch Buddy app recognizes this and enables participating students to better grasp the God-given worth and inherent value and innate goodness of everyone, and says with neon lights: you’re welcomed and cherished here.

Working together—under the incredible guidance of their advanced software engineering teacher Mr. Nick Gattuso—Luke, Theresa, Jaspreet and Adrian created the Lunch Buddy app, which earned them the top prize in the New Jersey Fourth Congressional District’s 2017 Congressional App Challenge. Several weeks ago the team came to the Capitol where they were nationally recognized.

Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of seeing the app in action when I visited the high school in February and was struck by the extraordinary care and kindness of the winners, and frankly all the students in the class. These young people are truly amazing.

Allow me Mr. Speaker to say a brief word about the teacher Nick Gattuso.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Gattuso was so inspired by the selflessness of so many, that he left a highly successful career at Bell Labs and took an early retirement and huge pay cut to teach, because he said he just wanted to give back to others. He said he was too old to be a firefighter, too old to be a cop but chose the noble profession of teacher.

Today, with great skill, energy and passion, Mr. Gattuso teaches his students, in his words, “how to use their programming, engineering and problem-solving skills for good.”

Lunch Buddy app epitomizes that “good”.

Lunch Buddy app, Mr. Speaker, sprang out of a broader initiative to create a better learning environment for students with disabilities.

In 2012, Point Pleasant Borough High School established the Panther Assisted Learning Software, or “PALS”, with the stated goal of “providing students with multiple disabilities differentiated assistive learning technologies and to promote increased independence and vocational sufficiency.”

Additionally, PALS was created to “overcome specific barriers to learning,” and to facilitate “increased interaction between special needs students and their non-disabled peers.” It is a wonderful program that teaches important lessons that last a lifetime, and I believe this program needs to be replicated in every high school in the country.

Lunch Buddy app is one of several real world, operational apps that are enhancing the learning and community environment at Point Pleasant. Other apps, for example, assist students with their class schedules, money management, and resume building, and are developed in close collaboration with special needs students in the Life Skills class.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, the Congressional App Challenge itself was created to allow students in STEM fields, who also work in computer programming, an opportunity to showcase their software application achievements. These STEM fields are central to the global workforce of the future, and it is critical for our students to have opportunities like this to further develop their expertise in computer programming and work with teammates to enhance their collective creativity.

We all know that integrating into the academic and social environment at school can be difficult for many students, especially and including those with a disability. As the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Autism Caucus, I have heard stories from countless families with children with autism who struggle.

So I am especially grateful to our four designers of Lunch Buddy app who showed both great technical skill and great compassion. They put their expertise to the service of others.

Mr. Speaker, what they—and the other students in that class—have to offer, the world awaits.