Stories of Bridgeway House: Mike and Kelly Prentice

Presenter: To celebrate Autistic Pride Day June 18, we’re visiting with the extended family of students, teachers, parents, grandparents, staff, and volunteers at Bridgeway House. We visited with grandparents Mike and Kelly Prentice:

Kelly Prentice: My grandson, so when he started school, he was five and started the ‘Children in Transitions’ in public school and it was really not good. So then, I think I applied here and I talked to Patricia and she put him on the waiting list.

And then when he was in third grade, so, what, eight maybe, he told me he was ready to start school and was interested in coming here, and at that very same time, Patricia said she had an opening that she was going to save for him. And he is 13 this year. I think he’s at the point he’s ready to move on and he wants to try public school.

[00:01:03] So maybe possibly next year he might be moving into public school. So we went from just definitely, ‘No, I don’t want to go to school, I don’t want to be around kids,’ he was afraid, and to, like, ‘Yeah, now I’m ready.’ Yeah, we’re very excited.

[00:01:25] Mike Prentice: Complete turnaround.

[00:01:26] Kelly Prentice: Yeah. Well kids, when they’re little can tend to be violent. And I would say he was very aggressive. He was hitting, he was not able to handle any stress, so he was very anxious, didn’t want to be away from his parents.

[00:01:45] He was just scared of being bullied. You know, just kind of lower self-esteem. And now he’s completely like, he’s a 13-year-old boy who is ready to get out there and start socializing.

And I took him to the swimming pool, Echo Hollow Pool, last summer and watched him slowly navigate his way to a game of water basketball, like, with a group of older kids, and he kind of went in and he grabbed the ball and started playing and joined the game, and he would’ve never done that before. And he’s not aggressive at all anymore, and he can joke with us. And he is very, his self-esteem is really good now.

[00:02:38] Mike Prentice: This school’s done him a lot of good. It’s changed his whole life for him, I think, from when he was, first started.

[00:02:46] Kelly Prentice: Yeah, we decided like as a family, we want him to be happy. Not necessarily like the education isn’t like the wasn’t number one priority. We want him to be happy and feel good about himself and not be judged for who he is. And he is definitely a happy kid now and feels good about himself and confident. So yeah, it’s made a huge difference

[00:03:12] Mike Prentice: I think so.

[00:03:13] Kelly Prentice: A huge difference. We love it here. We’re very thankful that he got that opportunity to be here. All kids, if they need it, should be able to go to a place where they don’t feel embarrassed about who they are. And then they can just be who they are.

[00:03:31] And if that’s a meltdown one day and they have a meltdown and they, you know, have hands on or something, not to feel like they’re bad people, it’s okay. Like: ‘This is okay, we’re going to make it through,’ and are taught how to deal with it—how to deal with the stress and anxiety. And yeah, I wish all kids had that. It’s great.

[00:03:56] I work in public school, I work in a middle school, and there are kids who just, they struggle with education. They may have not had the ability to learn how to read, some of them, or just their self-esteem is very low. And because of our economy, these kids are being pushed into mainstream classes without any support.

[00:04:24] So if they were already having self-esteem issues, that’s just going to make it three, four times worse for them not to get any support and you know, not to be made fun of for who they are. Everybody should have that.

[00:04:44] And if this school was to close, these kids would be put in the position of not having the support they need to become successful adults.

[00:04:56] I really feel like our grandson has grown so much because of the school. He’s going to be able to be independent when he grows up. He’s going to have a job and he is going to have a family if he chooses. And, you know, every child should be able to do that.

[00:05:13] To have this environment available, it’s not cheap. And you know, they have to have the funds available to provide this, and they have to have the people available who understand the kids. And they do that here. They really understand. We love it.

[00:05:33] Presenter: We’re celebrating Autistic Pride Day by visiting with the extended family at Bridgeway House, a treasure right here in Eugene Springfield. It started as a group of parents meeting in a living room and providing mutual aid. Now two sites serve 90 students from 17 school districts.

With more wanting to attend, KEPW is celebrating the many success stories. You can donate through the website, BridgewayHouse.org, or call (541) 345-0805.

During summer break, calls to Bridgeway House will be automatically transferred to school admin team cell phones. For faster service, call the cell phones directly: (541) 743-5159 and (505) 930-6910.