THOMASVILLE, Ga. (WTXL) — A Thomasville school for children with autism and developmental disabilities warns families may be turned away if more funding doesn’t come through.
- About 90% of students rely on scholarships like the Georgia Special Needs and Promise Scholarships
- The school ended last year with $100,000 in unmet tuition—and this year, the gap is nearing $200,000
- Without additional funding, families may face waitlists or lose access to specialized care and therapy
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
With little state support and a long list of student needs, one autism academy in Thomasville is fighting to keep its programs alive.
I’m looking into how this small center is using scholarship programs to survive and serve.
Most families at Step and Stones are low-income and depend heavily on outside help to cover costs. The school faces a huge demand with over 100 kids still on the waiting list — but not enough funding to meet it.
“We have access to state funding, but in order for us to meet the needs of the kids, we have 100 kids on our waiting list So to continue to bring those kids in and to continue to support that at the level of service that they require and they need, then we definitely need access to more state funds to be able to do that,” said Shauna Bell, school principal.
One program that really felt the squeeze this year was their summer camp. Usually, they serve more than 20 students — but this summer, only 11 kids could attend.
“We had very limited funding. The funding source that we typically get, I'm not sure if their federal funding was cut, which trickled down to us because it was an autism-specific grant that we would typically get for our kids. So we no longer were able to receive that grant, which meant none of our kids were going to be able to come. So we had to get out ourselves and just rally with the community to support us to get the scholarship funding that we needed for some of our kids to be able to come.” said Tinika Dismuke, executive director.
Still, Shauna Bell says despite those funding cuts, the school made sure the kids got the care and support they needed.
“If they're home in the summer and they do regress, then it's like coming back to school, we have to start over. And that's really hard for kids with autism or neurodiverse learners because they rely on it being predictable, being routine, " said Bell.
Most of the students — about 90% — rely on scholarships like the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship, which gives roughly $6,500 per child each year. There’s also the newer Georgia Promise Scholarship for families without an IEP. But even combined, the money still falls short.
“The community plays a huge role, but it's not their obligation, you know, to be able to fund for our kids to go to school. You know, we need more state support, for sure. So we literally, when we close out the 2024-25 school year, we still had over $100,000 of unmet tuition fees. Yes, and even going into this upcoming school year, you know, we're already at, you know, almost $200,000 of unmet tuition fees,” said Dismuke.
Until more state funding comes in, Step and Stones is accepting community donations and volunteers to help out neurodivergent kids.
Want to see more local news? Visit the WTXL ABC 27 Website.
Stay in touch with us anywhere, anytime.
