Autism Acceptance Day Celebrates What Makes All Students Special At Mount Vernon City School District

MOUNT VERNON, NY — A festive Mount Vernon tradition helped celebrate our differences, and what makes us the same.

From Mount Vernon City School District .

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The Mount Vernon City School District joined forces with the Special Education PTA, the Mount Vernon Federation of Teachers and the Daisy Dream Project on Tuesday to send a message that everyone is accepted for the fourth annual Autism Acceptance Day. Families and students walked and ran around the Graham School playground for a fun evening filled with games, activities and snacks!

“The importance is just celebrating neurodiversity and celebrating kids that not only have autism, but also other neurodiverse abilities,” said Bianca Lopez, president of SEPTA, who was connecting with families and sharing resources along with other members of SEPTA throughout the event.

Ms. Lopez explained that SEPTA chooses to have the event at different schools each year in order to reach the most families possible and continue building the SEPTA community.

This year, the Daisy Dream Project, an organization designed to support families with disabilities, sponsored the event and had stations set up to connect with families and explain how they help families. The Daisy Dream Project has a sensory gym in Mount Vernon, designed to give children with disabilities a fun activity that can also help soothe them.

“I think it's a beautiful thing,” said Haj Hylton, whose child, Emir, has autism and attends Pennington School. “They're already going to have a lot of obstacles as they grow up. 
So, I mean, being able to be included and be celebrated is a beautiful thing.”

Autism Acceptance Day featured sensory stations, where students enjoyed soothing activities designed to decrease anxiety and help emotional regulation. Local community partners also shared resources with families, and there were vendors and activities designed to unite families in support of students on the autism spectrum. Families were served pizza, popcorn and cotton candy, while students played with their friends on the bouncy house, slides and carnival games.
The Mount Vernon Federation of Teachers (MVFT) showed their support by donating to the event, and many MVCSD teachers volunteered to organize and work at the event. They assisted with sign-ups, set-up, food distribution, games and clean up. Parent liaisons were also instrumental in organizing the event.

“It’s important for us to be supportive of this Autism Acceptance event because we work very, very closely with this population, and we are very empathetic to the needs of all the students and their parents,” said Keith McCall, president of MVFT and academic intervention services math specialist.
”So this is our way of supporting our young scholars.”

Kathryn Santoro, a special education teacher at Hamilton who helped start the event four years ago alongside social studies teacher Donald Emerson, has seen the event grow over the years as more people see the importance of building community around students with disabilities.

“You don't even realize until you start talking to people that there's people with autism in everybody's lives, and they don't want to be a puzzle piece,” said Ms. Santoro. “They don't want to fit in; they want to be a part of.”

The district sent a message loud and clear that all students of all abilities will be accepted through Autism Acceptance Day

“We take the inclusion and acceptance of all our students very seriously, especially those with disabilities,” said Superintendent Dr. Strickland. “We hope that our families of students with disabilities know that we want to support them in as many ways as we possibly can. We will continue our work of providing them with opportunities and resources to meet that goal.”

This press release was produced by the Mount Vernon City School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.