Special Needs School Rally Draws Big Crowd of Supporters

Five year old Victoria Savoretti, a student at Mill Neck Manor School for the Deaf, has an important message for Governor Cuomo. "I love my school…Please Governor, don’t cut our funding," she said when interviewed with her mother Andrea.

Over twelve hundred people from the surrounding community at the Broadway Mall in Hicksville signed Mill Neck Manor School for the Deaf’s petition on Saturday March 26th reinforced her message.

Mill Neck Manor School for the Deaf is one of 11 special needs 4201 schools across New York in danger of losing its direct state funds due to proposed state budget cuts.

Andrea Savoretti says "Everything’s going great, it’s a huge turn out. The children are loving the sign language. They feel that it’s sad that they’re taking the money away from the children. We understand there are budget problems, but there are probably better ways to cut the money then take it from the children."

Phylis Levine of Plainview, a Speech Language Pathologist at the school, says it was great to have such community support. "Most people I've asked are quite understanding. They want to show their support and think that the children who are deaf, blind and physically challenged in New York State, should have the best education they can get."

State Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg of Long Beach was in attendance with his wife Ellen and special needs son Rickey. "We have hundreds of children who take their time to come here and lobby if you will to be able to say look at us, see who we are and support us in our desire to be able to get the funding that's necessary." 

"New Yorkers themselves are very compassionate people. I don’t think they know what is happening. I don’t think they realize that this kind of cut will really hurt children with severe disabilities and their education will be impaired," said Loretta Murray.

Katie Kerzner the school’s Principal at deaf education center says "We’ve had a wonderful response today… a lot of people commented that they’re surprise that the Governor would even think about cutting the money for children who have disabilities and they were shocked by that."

From here the petitions will be sent to the Governor’s office imploring him to change his mind and restore the funding to the schools in the budget. For more information you can check out the schools website www.millneck.org

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