Some families travel more than three hours one way to bring their child to the T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disability, director Kasee Stratton-Gadke said, because its specialized preschool services can’t be found anywhere else.
The T.K. Martin Center on the Mississippi State University campus provides technology, training and educational support for people of all ages with disabilities, and it relies on grants and donations, Stratton-Gadke told the Starkville Rotary Club at its virtual meeting Monday.
“(It’s) really humbling to know that families are trusting us with that care, but also it really speaks to the impact of that program and what wonderful support our staff gives,” she said.
Stratton-Gadke has been the center’s director for just more than a year. She was the first speaker of the new term of Rotary leadership on Monday, with Grant Arinder taking over the presidency from Sid Salter, and the club will make a weekly donation to the T.K. Martin Center in honor of the speaker at each meeting for the next year.
The preschool program is the “heart and soul” of the center, and it will start its 19th year in August, Stratton-Gadke said. Its goal is to help children with disabilities get “as close to an equal playing field to their peers as possible” at an early age, she said. The school has three classrooms, teachers and teaching assistants, as well as speech, occupational and physical therapists.
Many students have weak immune systems and cannot attend a regular school due to the interpersonal spread of illnesses and infections, and this is especially important during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Stratton-Gadke said. The school will implement additional safety measures when students return in August, and those measures will not be finalized until just before the school year starts so it can be as up-to-date as possible, she said.
“We will not have any volunteers or extra persons coming into our classrooms, every child and their family is going to be screened (for a fever) before they enter the building, and we have worked very closely with Mississippi State’s janitorial team to make sure we have the right sanitization (schedule) up and running,” Stratton-Gadke said.
One of her goals for the center’s future is to add a classroom for kindergarteners through third graders with immune system issues, she said.
In April 2019, rumors spread on social media that the center might close due to a loss of grant funding, but MSU administrators said there were no plans to close the center. Stratton-Gadke said the center still has all the grant contracts it had before she became director and has added a few more since, including one with the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which works to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities.
“We’re in a very good place financially,” Stratton-Gadke said.
She is an associate professor of educational psychology and the founder and director of Mississippi State’s Bulldog CHARGE (coloboma, heart defects, atresia choanae, growth retardation, genital abnormalities and ear abnormalities) Syndrome Research Laboratory and the co-founder and co-director of the university’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic.
“If you don’t know how I manage all those roles, I’m not sure either,” Stratton-Gadke said. “I was really excited to step into this role (as director). It was kind of a dream job.”
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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