Autistic Students Dismantle Electronics, Find Their Niche

CEDAR KNOLLS — On the first day of April, and also, coincidentally, the first day of Autism Awareness Month, six students at the Allegro Autism School here ambled into an airy classroom and began unscrewing, picking apart and dismantling an assortment of old electronics.

Since September, almost three hundred students have walked into Tim Butler and Kevin Davidowich's classroom to participate in Green Vision, an electronics recycling program at Allegro. Butler and Davidowich created the program to address two real needs of their community: recycling old electronics—some of which are donated to the school by Chatham residents—and finding jobs for adults with disabilities.  

"Once kids graduate, there's nothing out there for them," Butler said Thursday afternoon, while his students worked independently at several neatly arranged Craftsman tool tables to dismantle two large printers and a smattering of smaller electronic devices.

"The big question with parents is, 'Where is my [son or daughter] going after this?'" Davidowich said.

Like most teachers, Butler and Davidowich want their students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives. But in a society that routinely stigmatizes and alienates people with disabilities, that can be difficult.

"There's a big stigma in society about autism—that they can't do stuff," Butler said. "We see some of our higher functioning grads out there and they're shredding paper and they vegetate … if that's all they're capable of, that's fine, but the higher functioning guys in that position, that's a waste of an education."

So Butler spent one and a half years figuring out how to run and implement a recycling program at the school that would help his higher functioning students develop employable skills.

Before that, Butler had begun to teach students how to use simple hand tools.

"Once they started using tools, it was all about putting it into action," he said.

When another teacher came into his classroom asking him to take apart a computer for recycling, Butler got his students involved in the dismantling. They haven't stopped since.

Since September 2009, the students have sent 20 tons of material to licensed scrap dealers and electronic recyclers, according to Davidowich.

Butler tries to keep the program, which combines his "three big loves"—working with children, working with tools and recycling—as green as possible. Green Vision operates 99.5 percent landfill free; spider plants hang in the upper windows of the spacious classroom to naturally circulate the room and lemon-scented geraniums in the bathroom keep it smelling fresh. And of course, everything gets recycled.

"I'm a horrendously anal recycler," he said.

Most of the material for the recycling comes from neighboring towns, including Madison and possibly, in the future, Chatham Township. Corporations with offices as far away as London are Butler's biggest contributors, but locals also contribute—Chatham residents donate some of their old electronics to the school. 

Because Green Vision doesn't charge for its services, the program is "a win for everyone," Butler said.  Companies get a write-off because the electronics they send count as a donation and Butler gets the material he needs to run his program.

Any money Green Vision receives comes from the recycling centers or scrap dealers—$73 came in Thursday for a truckload of steel—and goes back into the program.

Butler and Davidowich said they plan to franchise Green Vision and open a vocational-technical school for autistic adults, hoping to get corporate sponsors to expand the program.

For now, though, Butler and Davidowich are happy to be doing their part to unscrew, dismantle, and pick apart the stigmas surrounding autism.

"They're not incapable of doing stuff, and I think that's the big misconception," Butler said.

Adds Davidowich: "The bottom line is, the kids have learned something, we're helping the environment, and kids can get job opportunities in the future."