Hawthorne Foundation Inc., formerly the Margaret Chapman School, has been educating children in New York since 1968. Hawthorne Foundation Inc. is an organization that has grown to serve more than 500 children and adults with autism and other intellectual disabilities and is an important organization in the community.
Margaret Chapman School was certified as a school for children with special needs in 1968; at that time individuals with severe intellectual disabilities first received the right to be educated. Even then as a new teacher, Eileen Bisordi was an advocate for the rights of individuals with severe disabilities. She felt all students, regardless of the severity of their disability, have a right to learn. She fought for educational rights, for better educational conditions, and for opportunities to participate in the community. She quickly knew that her role was to advocate. To do that she needed to take a larger role in the school. She soon became the Executive Director, went right back to graduate school to prepare her to teach a differently-abled type of student, and found a professor who was exploring innovative approaches to education, training, and organizational management. He came to Hawthorne Foundation Inc. to help her make a difference.
In 1980, Hawthorne Foundation Inc. began to serve individuals using Applied Behavior Analysis. Hawthorne served individuals ranging in age from five to twenty-one years, at their residential school in Westchester County, New York. HFI successfully developed innovative teacher training programs, education methods, and organizational frameworks that continue to influence teachers and administrators in the region and beyond.
Today Hawthorne Foundation Inc. provides educational day programs (early intervention, preschool, school age Westchester, and school age Manhattan) to assist students ages eighteen months to twenty-one years old. HFI is an OPWDD provider of adult programs (residential community-based homes and day habilitation) focused on educational, vocational, and meaningful post-high school experiences for adults twenty-one years and older. Hawthorne Foundation Inc. also offers fiscal intermediary services to support self-direction, community work-based learning experiences, and independent living opportunities that support our families. As we continue to grow and expand our high quality educational, vocational, and habilitative person-centered services, one thing has not changed—our commitment and dedication to individuals with autism and intellectual disabilities. It is truly our people - board members, staff, volunteers, families, individuals with disabilities and community partners - who make HFI a place of growth and hope for the future by supporting our philosophy of individual worth and human dignity.
