Arizona Autism Charter Schools (AZACS), the only public school for students with autism in Arizona and the first in the west specifically designed to serve neuro-divergent learners, won the $1 million Yass Prize, education’s largest and most prestigious award.
Yass Prize honored the recipients of its awards Wednesday night at the New York Hilton in midtown Manhattan, a press statement said.
Eight other finalists, each of which will receive a $500,000 prize, also initiated their endeavors due to personal situations or the unavailability of quality education opportunities in traditional public schools.
The other finalists were Capital Prep Schools; Northern Cass School District in North Dakota; Oakmont Education in Ohio; Rapunzl, an ed-tech company; SailFuture Academy in Florida; Soar Academy in Georgia, unCommon Construction in Louisiana; and Urban Preparatory Academy in Kansas.
“We were thrilled to find these education changemakers and are grateful to be able to reward their extraordinary creativity, tenacity and achievements, and to help them build for the future,” said Janine Yass, founder with her husband Jeff, of the Yass Prize.
“We should be giving every educator in the nation the freedom the Yass Prize winners have to tailor education to the needs of children, and give every parent the opportunity to choose specialized learning environments like these,” Yass added. “After 25 years and countless dollars in charitable giving, this is by far the most impactful thing we have ever done with our resources.”
The Phoenix-based autism charter schools began in 2004 when Diana Diaz-Harrison’s son was diagnosed with autism, and she could not find traditional public schools with quality curricula for the special needs of this population.
Diaz-Harrison subsequently joined with other parents, grandparents, and professionals to launch the school, using Arizona’s charter school law to support the plan. She now serves as executive director of AZACS.
The school grew from 90 students in 2014 to more than 700 in the current school year, now across four schools. AZACS plans to expand into Nevada, California, Texas, Florida, and Louisiana.
“AZACS students are celebrated for their neuro-diversities and have differentiated programs to challenge them to their next level of learning,” the Yass Prize website notes.
“As an Autism Mom, I don’t want my kid to be seen as disabled,” Diaz-Harrison said in a statement. “I want him to be seen as a doer, intelligent, productive, and so these charter schools that we are starting across America will help our children be neurodiverse, be who they are and be fulfilling, productive citizens.”
Yass Prize observes AZACS “places a unique focus on science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics, and on project-based learning to ensure their students obtain the education and transferable skills necessary for them to succeed later in life.”
The AZACS program, with a student-to-staff ratio of 6:1, differs from traditional, “compliance-based” special education models in that “data is collected so that every student at every grade level and ability level is making progress.”
“Because teachers who specialize in teaching neuro-divergent students are so critical to their success, AZACS applied and is the first school approved by the state to offer a Classroom-Based Teacher Certification Program, building a growing, highly-qualified regime of teachers who share their mission,” the Yass Prize website continues. “Some families drive over an hour each way for their students to attend.”
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Arizona Autism Charter Schools Yass Award” by Arizona Autism Charter Schools.
