Beyond the Classroom: Abby David and Erin Nealy’s Vision for Autism Education

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti (07:51.456)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guests plural are Abby David and Erin Neely, co-founders and co-CEOs of two nonprofits, Bridgeway Academy and Bridgeway Therapy Center, which provide a centered approach to educational and therapeutic services for people with autism.

and other disabilities in central Ohio. Their services include school day education from preschool to age 22, life skills training, vocational skills training, including community-based instruction, and transition to adulthood support. This dynamic duo has led Bridgeway to remarkable success, earning accolades such as Columbus CEO’s Top Workplace Award for five consecutive years.

and the title of Columbus’s best nonprofit in 2019 and again in 2024. Their dedication to the well-being of children in central Ohio is evident not only in their professional achievements, but also in their advocacy efforts. Recognized as influential voices in their community, Erin and Abby have been honored with prestigious awards, including Business First 40 Under 40 in 2013, Nabo’s

Visionary Leadership Award in 2018, and Smart Businesses Smart 50 Leaders in Central Ohio Award in 2019 and 2024. And now just hot off the presses, they’ve also been named as a top place to work by USA Today. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency.

where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cashflow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. All right, now.

Anthony Codispoti (10:07.746)
Back to our guests today, the co-founders and co-CEOs of Bridgeway, Abby and Erin. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Abby David (10:16.142)
Thanks for having us, we’re excited to be here.

Erin Nealy (10:18.601)
Thanks, it’s a real honor, Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti (10:18.669)
All right.

Glad to have both of you. So tell us how the idea to start Bridgeway first came about.

Abby David (10:27.126)
I guess I can start there if you want. So Erin and I were both therapists working in the community. So Erin is a music therapist by degree and I am a speech therapist by degree. And we both at the time that we met actually both had private practices. Erin had employees working for her, but I was kind of a one man show or one woman show, I should say. I had worked in the public schools, but had a caseload.

of over 70 kids and I really didn’t feel like it was making much of a difference. went out on my own. Erin and I both have strong backgrounds, specifically working with children with disabilities, but with autism as well. We both have worked for home teams as therapists in the past. And so it was kind of a background for both of us when we met. So Erin and I would meet as we passed working in people’s homes, providing therapy services.

and actually met, started showing up at the same team meetings together and realized we had the same ideas and philosophies about working with individuals with disabilities, especially those with autism. So Erin one day asked me if I would like to go to a jewelry making party and I asked her instead if she’d like to go for some wine and our friendship actually started there and then we started to co-treat together.

and started to collaborate, realizing that there was a really strong synergy with therapies and how it really showed improvement for our clients if we worked together, providing music and speech together at the same time. During all this, we also watched all of our families going in hundred different directions. So we’d see some of our families who had their educational services being provided by the school district and then they had outside speech therapy and speech at school.

and other therapies that they were going to, and it can never really be a family unit, and it can never be on the same page as to what therapies should we really be listening to, which ones are the best for my child. So Erin and I started talking about, wouldn’t it be awesome if one day there was a place where we could bring all your academics and all your therapies into one space to really help maximize our outcomes for our students and clients. And so

Abby David (12:52.302)
there were some things that came up in 2005 where there were some funding changes and it kind of became a, we going to do this or not? And we kind of jumped at the opportunity with not the strongest business plan in place, but just a strong, strong passion for the work that we do. So that happened all in February and we opened our doors in August of 2005 and we had

Anthony Codispoti (13:20.376)
fast.

Abby David (13:21.134)
12 students and 8 staff by the end of that first year. And it was preschool and kindergarten. It was a half-day program and we had speech, music, OT and psychological services at the time.

Anthony Codispoti (13:34.894)
So two follow-up questions for you there, Abby. Why was it that you felt like you weren’t making a difference in your earlier position?

Abby David (13:43.502)
My caseload was so high. I had 70 plus kids on my caseload. And so what happened is that you had only one to two sessions a week with them. They tended to only be 20 minutes by the time you went and got your student or by the time you found them or if they’re out on a field trip. I didn’t ever really see that I was making a difference. And then for those children who were more affected by their disability,

It was even less so. So I really just felt like I needed to be able to be with the kids more and be able to have longer sessions to really truly see that I was making a difference in their lives.

Anthony Codispoti (14:26.786)
And what were the 2005 funding changes that came about that sort of lit a fire under you?

Abby David (14:32.984)
So we have some different contracts with different agencies in the city. And in the long run, they had talked about either really lessening how much they provided or getting rid of certain services that were provided through those agencies. In the long run, music therapy unfortunately did get canceled. So there was no funding any longer. But we really strongly believe in the power of music. Erin can talk way more about that than I can.

And Erin had employees and we knew that we were making a difference and we just really felt like we needed to have a space where we could still utilize those services and implement them for our clients and students.

Anthony Codispoti (15:16.726)
Aaron, how about your perspective on sort of the inspiration for starting this? What was kind of going on for you?

Erin Nealy (15:24.565)
You know, Abby nailed the story back in 2004, 2005. I will say both of us having a background in applied behavior analysis was a big part of our passion for wanting to provide a school-based setting for our students to come and have those services integrated into their school days. A lot of families

after receiving a diagnosis of autism for their child are told that they, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends doing this therapy called ABA and having their children entered into an ABA setting for up to 40 hours a week. And back in the late 90s and early 2000s, most families were operating these programs out of their homes if they could.

So, you they were getting this diagnosis for their child, and then they were told, now you need to run a home program 40 hours a week in your home for your child. And we saw our families struggling with that. Everything from finding appropriate consultants to help them set these programs up to finding the clinicians to work in their homes, which were often college students or recent grads who were inconsistent at best.

And then not to mention the families that had two working parents in the home that could not possibly operate a session or these sessions for 40 hours a week. So we saw families really being pulled in a tug of war between what their pediatrician or their psychologist was recommending, what the school district could provide because school districts were saying, we can’t provide one-on-one therapy for your child for 40 hours a week.

That’s something you’ll have to do on your own. So I think that we both just felt a real passion for getting our students access to these really important critical therapies and making that happen for families that had those barriers where they couldn’t find staffing or they had families that were working outside of the home and couldn’t run those programs. And so we wanted to be able to provide that in a center-based setting and incorporate that into their school day.

Erin Nealy (17:45.333)
The other piece that we saw a lot of our kids struggling with, our clients and students, was generalization of skills across different environments. some children who were fortunate enough to be able to have a 40-hour-a-week home program of intensive therapy were able to master a lot of skills and make a lot of progress in the home, in one room in their house with one person.

but when going out into the community to practice those skills back in their school or in their place of worship or at the park, a lot of times those skills didn’t translate or generalize. And so we really felt passionate about bringing those skills into the education setting, into a group classroom environment where our kids could still have access to those critical therapies and have really individualized treatment models. But

be able to learn in that group setting that was a little more conducive to the way that their life would be ongoing.

Anthony Codispoti (18:48.268)
Say more about ABA for the uninitiated. What is this?

Erin Nealy (18:53.513)
Sure, it’s a field that has really grown over the last 20 years. ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis. And there is now a board for behavior analysts. This requires a master’s level degree and certification to kind of help students and families.

with an ABA program. And basically, ABA is a methodology or an umbrella of services that helps students reduce the barriers of behavior in order to make gains with their educational goals, with their developmental goals, and things of that nature. So Abby and I, while neither of us are BCBAs, at Bridgeway we actually employ over 20 for

board certified behavior analysts. And they’re responsible for helping our educators and our students and families work through barriers that get in the way of our students learning every day.

Anthony Codispoti (19:59.064)
So help paint a picture for us about what your setup there is like. Is a child or an adult in the program, are they coming in there like Monday to Friday for sort of a full day? Are they getting like more traditional education? Is that something that’s accessible to them? Is it more about life skills? Help me understand.

Abby David (20:24.202)
It’s all the above. I mean, it truly is all the above. So in our academy, we are a chartered non-public or private school that’s recognized by the State of Ohio, Ohio Department of Education. So when our students come here, they will get a meaningful diploma from Bridgeway if they choose to stay here through their whole educational cycle.

Anthony Codispoti (20:25.496)
Okay.

Abby David (20:49.13)
if they also decide not to move forward to our Bridge to adulthood program after the 12th grade year. So they can get a meaningful diploma so they can go out into the community and they can get the jobs or they can go to college and do all that after they graduate from Bridgeway. So our students, in the academy, we have preschool programs all the way up to 12th grade. Something that is really unique about us that makes us really special is our

classroom ratios. Our typical classroom sizes are around 10 students with four to five students, four to five teachers per classroom. we, yes, correct, correct. And we do that because we want best outcomes for our students. And we see that that’s the way we can individualize our education plans for each of them to best meet their needs. So.

Anthony Codispoti (21:30.274)
Wow, that’s roughly almost like a two to one.

Abby David (21:46.572)
So typically that’s how you’ll see them. They’ll be here Monday through Friday for a full day schedule. And then we also have, you we have like hours that we have to maintain and make sure our students all complete each year, just like the public schools, because we are accredited. So we have to make sure that we meet those hours. So they’re here throughout the week getting those. And then when it comes to our therapy services, we do have the academy, I the therapy center, like we talked about.

Our therapists are able to collaborate and come and help in the classroom if they need. We have a number of students who are nonverbal who utilize augmentative communication devices as their speech. So the one thing is you can have this device, but if you’re not using it in the classroom, you’re not using it at home, it’ll never get used and this child will go their entire life without a communication system. So.

Anthony Codispoti (22:39.22)
Basically, it’s like a screen where they can kind of push on a symbol to generate a word to help communicate what it is that they need to say.

Abby David (22:47.79)
Correct. Absolutely. Yeah, right on. that’s so what we do is like so if it’s speech therapy, they’ll come into the classroom, help those teachers utilize that device with the student and show them and demonstrate how to utilize it so it is being used in the classroom. And then on top of that, there’s so much family support because the families do a lot to make sure that their students can come to Bridgeway, right? Like they it’s an investment for them to be here.

they know this is where their kids need to be. So they want to be an integral part and we want them to be an integral part. Because again, we could do everything in the world at Bridgeway, but if our families can’t do it at home or aren’t going to do it at home, then it’s never going to transfer, not going to generalize a skill, and then they’re not going to have their best outcomes. So the nice thing also is that when Erin was talking about our behavioral therapists, our BCBAs, we have a lot of the students whose behaviors do

get in the way of their learning. So until we can get it at helping those behaviors, they’re not going to get the educational gains that they need or to graduate. So we’re able to really kind of work on those skills right away from the get-go, identify what the cause of those behaviors are so that we can get back to what our students need to do, which is learning. So a student throughout the week, when it comes to therapies, they could get speech

therapy four to five times a week while they’re here. If they’re in our Academy, if that’s what they ethically and they need, if and if that’s what they need for their growth, like they have no communication system, you know, we can work on that. So we can provide a lot more services than the public schools can. Same thing for OT and PT as well. And then in our therapy center side, our clients will come in.

you know, once or twice a week and maybe why they’re here, they’ll get their OT, their speech, their music therapy. You know, we have a lot of groups that we also do. We have an adult theater group twice a week. That’s fantastic. I always recommend everybody come out and watch them in action because it’s so much fun, but they create a whole theater thing themselves. But anyways, so that we kind of it’s kind of a traditional therapy location for outside clients who come in.

Anthony Codispoti (25:11.512)
So Bridgeway Academy is the school, Bridgeway Therapy Center is more outpatient kind of a clinic setting where they can come, people don’t have to be attending the school in order to get the services. Okay. And I think you sort of hit on this, you mentioned that it’s an investment for the parents. So is this fully private or are there also any federal or state funds that are available to kind of help bridge the gap for folks that need that?

Abby David (25:22.99)
Correct. That is correct.

Abby David (25:40.94)
Yeah, go ahead Erin.

Erin Nealy (25:41.077)
So we have a variety of different, one of our goals is to, and as a nonprofit initially, Abby and I were passionate about setting up Bridgeway Academy and Therapy Center as a nonprofit organization because families are often spending upwards of 60 to $80,000 a year if they have a child with a disability on healthcare, specialized therapies and treatments.

We knew when we started to build this organization that we didn’t want financial need to be a reason that a child couldn’t access services at Bridgeway. So what we have set out to do is try to put together a puzzle for families to help them access as many different funding opportunities as possible to help keep their out-of-pocket expenses down.

In the end, do have, every family usually pays something to attend Bridgeway Academy, but we have some programs in the state of Ohio that allow families to have choice for their schools, and specifically a program called the Autism Scholarship that allows individuals with autism who are enrolled in a public school to be able to transfer some of the funds that would normally be going to the school district.

to choose their provider of choice. so families can use those dollars.

Anthony Codispoti (27:09.07)
Sorry, sorry to interrupt Aaron. You’re getting a little quiet. Maybe, I don’t know if the mic has slipped away. Okay. There. Great. That’s okay.

Erin Nealy (27:12.261)
okay, I’m so sorry. Yeah, I’ll hold it up closer. Sorry about that. So our families can access the autism scholarship through the Department of Education and they can use those funds to help to pay for their school of choice. We also try to offset the costs for families by opening our therapy center so that we could…

have families using insurance, Medicaid, and then private pay, as well as certain counties do offer some support to families with developmental disabilities to help pay for some therapy services. So we’re able to kind of put together a puzzle kind of individually for each family to help keep the costs as low as possible. And then as an organization, being a nonprofit, we fundraise every year.

and are able to then give out scholarships to our families directly from Bridgeway to help offset the costs for those families that have the highest need. And so I believe we’ve figured out we’re in the over the last 20 years, we’ve given out over $1.3 million in scholarships and financial aid to our families to help them be able to attend Bridgeway. So we’re really just thrilled to be able to do that every year.

but it gets more and more challenging as costs continue to rise.

Anthony Codispoti (28:41.057)
What are some of your biggest cost drivers? Is it labor? it, yeah.

Abby David (28:41.102)
Yeah, I.

Abby David (28:46.422)
It’s 100 % labor.

Erin Nealy (28:46.527)
So yeah, if you look at our budget as an organization, over 90 % of our organization’s dollars go back to our teachers and our therapists and our staff. So those dollars are coming in for therapies and education, tuition, and going right back out to pay for our staff.

Abby David (29:13.334)
I would like to say, you know, an opportunity that we just became involved with last year, it really helped us with being able to provide some scholarships to our families and we’re hoping to see it grow is something called a scholarship granting organization, an SGO, and that is a tax. It comes from your taxes each year, so you can get back $1,500 from taxes that you’re already paying.

And so it’s kind of like you get a refund. It costs you nothing. It’s already the money you’ve spent. And so we had a lot of people who participated last year. We know there’s a lot of other opportunities there and would be happy to talk more about those. just that has been a huge, what can be a huge game changer for us so that we can provide more dollars to our families too as the cost for

labor goes up for us, means it goes back to the family. And so we’re trying to really offset those costs for our families because it is a large expense for them.

Anthony Codispoti (30:18.67)
So what was the name, SGO? And so how does this work? Who is this available to? How do they access it?

Abby David (30:21.432)
Yes.

Erin Nealy (30:27.849)
So anyone in the state of Ohio that pays taxes, this is an Ohio based program. We’re told that other states have this as well, but in Ohio, the law changed a couple of years ago to allow for private schools to be able to access a scholarship granting organization. So we actually partner with the state’s scholarship granting organization.

And any individual or couple that files taxes and pays taxes in the state of Ohio can make a contribution through the SGO and those dollars will go directly to Bridgeway to pay for scholarships for students. And then as Abby said, it comes out as a tax credit. So individuals that are paying taxes already to the state of Ohio, they don’t have to itemize, they don’t have to be.

huge donors or give a huge amount of their dollars to other nonprofits in order to qualify for this. Anyone who pays taxes can have a direct credit back after donating the $1,500 when they file their taxes. So it’s a great time to be thinking through the end of this year. They also extend it until the April 15th tax date so folks can actually give.

and then turn around and file their taxes and get that credited right back to them. So it’s really just a win-win.

Anthony Codispoti (31:57.998)
What’s kind of the net effect for the family? Is it sort of like being able to pay for part of the tuition with pre-tax dollars? Am I kind of wrapping my head around that?

Erin Nealy (32:08.073)
So really we’re not, we are not marketing this at our families. This is anyone that pays taxes can contribute into the scholarship fund. So this helps Bridgeway. In the past, Bridgeway has done our own fundraising and it’s come from our own bottom line in order to give dollars to our families and scholarships. This has allowed anyone in the state of Ohio to be a participant in helping to pay for scholarships.

Anthony Codispoti (32:15.982)
Anthony Codispoti (32:33.292)
Okay.

Erin Nealy (32:38.047)
for families that otherwise wouldn’t be able to come to Bridgeway.

Anthony Codispoti (32:41.728)
Okay. So let me frame it differently then. It sounds like I’m going to pay $1,500 in taxes this year anyways, rather than having it go to who knows where I can, I can say, Hey, I want this to go to Bridgeway Academy and it’s going to reduce my tax obligation that I would have to the federal government or to the state government. This is for state taxes, state taxes. Okay.

Erin Nealy (33:00.789)
Exactly. That’s exactly right. It’s just the state, yes, but that’s exactly right. And any individual can do it and any couple that’s filing jointly can do it up to $1,500. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (33:16.975)
that’s tremendous.

Abby David (33:17.934)
And if you were going to get a return anyways, if you were going to get those dollars back, you will get that plus any money over that from the 15 up to $1,500 that you put in. So it’s not like, man, I only owed $750. So now I did pay 750. Nope. You will get back that full value if you put in the full $1,500. So it really is a win-win. You’re getting back your money no matter what.

Anthony Codispoti (33:44.034)
Yeah.

Abby David (33:47.502)
It sounds too good to be true. so, and since last year was the first year we participated, I will say there was a lot of skepticism, you know, like, did it happen? I mean, we did it. I mean, well, Erin and I, both our families did it and it, it worked as it was supposed to. Correct. Correct. So.

Anthony Codispoti (34:02.542)
It works as advertised, huh? And how do people go to access this or sign up or what do they tell their CPA?

Erin Nealy (34:11.615)
So we actually have a link on our website, believe, still that can direct folks to the SGO. And yes, they would talk with their accountant when they’re filing taxes. My family did ours virtually, well, through a portal on our own. And we just had to submit a separate letter when we filed our taxes online.

So that was the only real hoop that we had to jump through was filling out the form and sending it in. But yeah, most accountants are now becoming aware, but it’s been interesting that it is a confusing kind of concept for people to wrap their heads around. And I feel like everyone is fairly skeptical of taxes in general. So that hasn’t helped the cause, but every little bit that we can raise through the SGO just helps bridge ways.

Anthony Codispoti (34:47.299)
Yeah.

Abby David (34:58.198)
You

Erin Nealy (35:05.535)
bottom line for those dollars to go back to the students.

Anthony Codispoti (35:08.778)
That’s great. for folks listening, their website is bridgewayohio.org. I’m not exactly sure where the link for this is, but maybe you guys can get that to us and we’ll make sure we include it in the show notes.

Erin Nealy (35:22.557)
be great. We’d be happy to do that.

Anthony Codispoti (35:24.558)
That’s a terrific program.

Abby David (35:25.966)
And there’s going to be a drop down menu just so that people know and then they would pick Bridgeway out of the, you have to pick which entity because there’s a lot of, you’ll get a whole list of all the different, you know, participating schools. So, Bridgeway. Correct.

Anthony Codispoti (35:39.608)
Bridgeway, bridgeway, bridgeway, bridgeway. In case you didn’t get it, bridgeway. So you guys started in 2005. Pretty small to be expected, you know, to start with, but seems like you’ve grown quite a bit in the last 20 years. Talk to me about the sort of the size and scale.

Abby David (35:59.392)
Our goal has always been quality over quantity, right? And so when we started, we wanted to make sure we had a good program that we were doing right by our students and our staff. So we started off very, very small. It was a half day, like I said earlier, preschool and kindergarten day program. And we quickly realized that our students were making a lot of gains and it would be a good opportunity for us to move to a full day program. I think if you talked to Erin and I a long time ago,

We would have told you that we would have just been a preschool and kindergarten day program, or we would have gone through elementary school. And then that would have been where we’re going to go. But we are very lucky, very blessed as an organization to have amazing people who work for us and have worked for us for a really long time. Some people who’ve been here with us for 19 or 20 years, going on 20 years now. And when our students started to age out,

when they started getting to fifth grade, it was, hey, there’s not a lot of great programs in some of our cities and we know we can do a better job. So what do you guys think about moving to middle school? And, you know, we sat down, we talked about a plan, we talked about how we thought it would work and that’s what we did. And it happened again when our students were going into high school and

started to talk about, okay, what are we gonna do? And at that time, we weren’t a chartered non-public, we weren’t licensed through ODE, so our students weren’t getting diplomas. And that became part of our plan too. It’s like, well, we need to make sure our students can stay here, because if not, they would have received a homeschool diploma, which isn’t always accepted at all the colleges and all job sites and workplaces. So we wanted to make sure our students had.

the right credentials that needed for when they graduated. So worked alongside our amazing staff to move towards that. And then when we came to our Bridge to Adulthood program, we had some students who weren’t quite ready maybe to go on to post-secondary education or into the workforce yet. And they still need some skill development, which we already start working on in middle school with our students. But we realized that some of our students needed some more

Anthony Codispoti (38:18.2)
Yeah.

Abby David (38:22.038)
opportunities to really grow those skills so that they could become employable. So they weren’t just sitting at home or in day have facilities or even in a facility in general. Unemployment for our individuals with disabilities is really high. don’t, the employability rate is not very high for our clientele. So we wanted to make sure that we were helping them through those barriers.

so that they could have meaningful employment, be a part of their community and be a part of their families. And so we kind of just have organically grown as the needs have grown as well. We did go through a name change as well back in 2015. 16, we realized people didn’t know who we were. Our name at the time was Helping Hand Center for Special Needs. We had kids that were gonna start graduating from here and

It’s not a very grown up name. And people thought that we were a really small daycare is what people thought we were. And we actually literally had people in the donor community tell us, I’m not lying, that our name sucked. I mean, they use those words. Because when they would come out, well, not here, we moved to this building in 2019. when we had two separate sites, but when people came out to those buildings, they said, this is so much more than

Anthony Codispoti (39:27.798)
Hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (39:36.468)
you

Abby David (39:50.498)
what I ever thought it was. I did not realize the work that was going on in your building. As much as we would tell them and we would talk about it, it was really about seeing the work that goes on here and coming into our environment and our community to really see that work. So we knew we needed to change our name. that’s where Bridgeway became reality back in 2016.

It’s really been an organic growth over the last 20 years. We’re really excited about celebrating 20 years. But it’s really been, again, quality over quantity.

Anthony Codispoti (40:26.04)
But give us a size, as I think you said you were able to serve, was it 12 students in that first year or when you first opened and how many are you able to help now?

Erin Nealy (40:38.965)
So we have, sorry, both of us wanted to talk at the same time. We have 245 students enrolled in our preschool through 12th grade plus into our Bridge to Adulthood program. So those are the students that come every day for their school services. And then we serve another about 200 students in our therapy center.

Abby David (40:38.968)
Go ahead Erin.

Erin Nealy (41:02.997)
We estimate that we have close to 800 visitors every day to our building. So it’s a pretty large facility, 115,000 square feet on 22 acres here in the southeast side of Columbus. So yeah, it’s a pretty, it’s a big operation. Yes.

Anthony Codispoti (41:20.362)
That’s a lot of land. there a lot of outdoor activities?

Erin Nealy (41:24.701)
Yes, we have huge play spaces for our students. Our school is kind of split into two separate wings. One is a preschool and elementary wing. The other is our middle and high school wing. Both of those wings have a separate playground. We are very unique in that we do send our middle and high schoolers out outside to play at least once a day on our large playground. And there are

many opportunities for them to swing and have their sensory needs met. We believe that having that outside time is really imperative for our students and clients. We have kids that actually travel up to an hour and a half for a commute to get to Bridgeway Academy every day. And so they need to run and jump and play.

doing that really helps them to then focus in the classroom when they have to go back to work. So we believe that play and outdoor time and that kind of unstructured time is really important for all of our students. So we have a large playground for each of those wings of the building. And then we have, unfortunately, a very large parking lot as well to house 275 staff and then all the families that…

have to drive their kids to and from school and to therapies every day. unfortunately, a large parking lot is also part of that.

Anthony Codispoti (42:52.608)
It’s necessary to do what you’re doing there, to do the good work that you’re doing.

Erin Nealy (42:54.535)
It is. It is.

Abby David (42:55.554)
yet. We actually purchased this building in 2019, right before COVID. So we actually were going to launch our capital campaign at the beginning of April before the world shut down. So we still successfully had a campaign. We began to do everything we wanted to do at the building, but we’re able to move from two dilapidated buildings that we were in. Our students and our staff and our families deserve so much more.

And so when we found this place, we’d been looking for about two years. And so we finally found it. And so we were successfully able move in in 2021. it definitely allowed us to expand a little bit more over the last couple of years since COVID.

Anthony Codispoti (43:40.878)
And it seems like with 22 acres, you would have room to add onto that should the need arise. we’re recording this episode, the tail end of November, 2024. You guys started in 2005, coming up on 20 years. Is there a celebration being planned here?

Abby David (43:47.886)
Correct.

Erin Nealy (43:48.821)
is correct.

Abby David (44:03.374)
We are celebrating all year.

Erin Nealy (44:03.445)
Yes, are still, that’s exactly what I was gonna say. Celebrating all year, really taking advantage of this time of celebration. This is, we’re actually in our 20th school year right now. And so our big birthday is technically, know, August of 2025, but really celebrating the 20 years of Bridgeway for this whole year into 2025. We have…

Anthony Codispoti (44:05.868)
Hahaha.

Anthony Codispoti (44:14.804)
Okay, good. Yeah, good point.

Erin Nealy (44:31.303)
already had a little bit of a kickoff celebration for our students. It was a little bit of kind of a carnival, unfortunately it rained that day, but we made the most of it and just had some really fun activities for our students and families to come and just start that celebration and that kickoff. And we’ll be celebrating in April. We have a huge signature event every April and we’ll be celebrating then for sure and throughout the year.

Anthony Codispoti (45:01.624)
So there’s fundraising events, there’s that tax program, SGO, that we talked about. Are there other ways for people to get involved who, I don’t know, are you looking for more full-time employment or are there opportunities for volunteers? What exists here?

Erin Nealy (45:19.421)
Yeah, we have many different opportunities. There is a national teacher shortage that has definitely impacted all schools, especially smaller schools like ours. And so we are continually looking to add to our teachers. Abby shared that we have four to five teachers in every classroom.

And not all of those teachers have to be a licensed teacher. We have many people with varying backgrounds that are supporting the classrooms. But we still always need intervention specialists and licensed teachers. We also are always hiring in our therapy departments, especially our speech therapists right now. And as there is a shortage of speech therapists and

We have a lot of goals. have some high goals for growth in the future, which include continuing to grow our academy and our therapy center. And so that requires amazing staff members to come alongside us in that journey. And so always looking at that. Excuse me. And then we have a board of trustees, and we have many corporations that are involved with us from a volunteer standpoint.

So there are a lot of ways to get involved, whether it’s employment or volunteering.

Abby David (46:50.112)
And I will also just add on that coming up is Giving Tuesday. So we are very active on social media. We always love to do special things and raise funds on special Tuesday, on Giving Tuesday. It is a special Tuesday. So we encourage our families and our friends of Bridgeway to take a look at that. I can’t give away exactly yet what we’re raising funds for because it’s kind of a buildup right now.

Erin Nealy (47:05.767)
Thank

Abby David (47:18.542)
encourage everybody to go out and look at that. like Erin said, we encourage people to come out and take a tour with us and get to learn how they can be involved from all different, from volunteering to financial support to all the above.

Anthony Codispoti (47:37.048)
That’s great. Aaron, I want to follow up on something that was mentioned earlier in the interview. And maybe we can get you to bring your mic back up because I want to make sure everybody hears this because I know you’ve got a background in music. Tell me more about the power of music and the type of work that you’re doing.

Erin Nealy (47:50.441)
I mean, really.

Erin Nealy (47:55.509)
Sure, music, as Abby said, is a very powerful tool. Music therapy is something that’s close to my heart. That’s how I started as a certified music therapist. And we employ still to this day five full-time music therapists at Bridgeway and incorporate that into our students’ day-to-day learning and therapies. And music is a real tool for our students to be able to

learn to express themselves, but also in communication and socialization. And so while music therapy, a lot of people think, so you have them listen to music, recorded music. And that is just only a very small part of what music therapy can be. The majority of our students are participating in active music making through singing, songwriting, instrument play.

group instrument play and activities together to incorporate opportunities and facilitate socialization experiences, and then the self-expression piece. But we have a lot of students that are so motivated by music intrinsically. It’s a part of our culture that we kind of take for granted. And so many students can be motivated by music to even speak or sing some of their first words.

And so it’s a really, it is really a powerful part of our program, something that our families really want their kids to participate in. And we’ve had just the joy of seeing kids come alive through music making opportunities with their therapists. So obviously I’m passionate about it, but I believe our teachers and our therapists and our families and our students really believe in the power of music therapy as well.

Anthony Codispoti (49:45.294)
That’s cool. I want to go back to something we’re talking about with the teacher shortage and you’ve got open positions there. Because whether it’s in education or the other industries I get to talk to, I still hear a lot of folks talk about a pretty tight labor market. So I’m curious to hear from your side, maybe things that you’ve tried, that you see have been effective in either recruiting new folks to join you, or once you have good folks, how do you hold on to them? How do you retain them?

Erin Nealy (50:15.893)
It’s great. It is really kind of an art and science that we’re continuing to learn about. I think one of the things that we try to do at Bridgeway is ensure that we have a really healthy working culture and that our culture and our value systems are really up in the front of what we do as an organization. And so we try to recruit staff members that

obviously fit into that culture and that helps with the retention. But we have been as creative as we can be. We have a recruiting partner in our organization. have someone that’s main job and role is recruiting and they go to college fairs, job fairs. We have obviously our

ads for our workforce on as many different platforms as possible. But bringing in really quality individuals into Bridgeway really helps our teams to be the best that they can be. When you’re working closely, there’s a true, it’s a true win for our teachers coming in because they get to work closely with four to five other teachers in a classroom. And so,

That is a huge recruiting tool that we use is just sharing about our model because there’s so much support built into our classroom structure at Bridgeway, but it’s getting the word out about that. But teachers really report that they feel supported with having those co-teachers and having supervisors that are BCBAs and master’s level educators that can really support the work that they’re doing in their classrooms.

That’s something that we really try to highlight when we’re recruiting our staff is the just the unique nature of the work that they do and the fact that our teachers really get to focus in on the sole needs of our students and individualize the lesson planning that they’re doing and the work that they’re doing with our students with the support of a whole team of teachers and therapists behind them.

Erin Nealy (52:33.83)
So that’s a really important part of our recruitment is our storytelling about the culture at Bridgeway.

Abby David (52:40.44)
I would say our training like Erin was saying, and I will say that Erin and I think that we’re pretty fun. So we try to have like…

Anthony Codispoti (52:48.832)
Well, I heard about how you met. First, it was going to be a jewelry making party, but then it turned into a wine drinking party. I that sounds like a great way to start a business partnership.

Abby David (52:55.214)
Bye.

Exactly. But we know that the work that they do because we’ve both done the work, right? We’ve not only we’ve both been therapists, but we’ve both worked on home teams before. And so we knew challenges and we know it can be really difficult, especially if you’re on an island by yourself. So like Aaron talked about with having lots of support. But we also try to just do things around here to show that Aaron and I are real people and that we want we hope that they

They feel appreciated, not just by their directors or their managers, but by us as well. So we try to do some fun things throughout the year to show our silly sides. I mean, we’ll do anything for this organization. We’ve done flash mobs before. We’ve done, you know, we’ll do it all. You ask us, there’s probably not much we wouldn’t do. Erin wants to fly in sometime at one of our galas. If anybody has any opportunities for that, we’ll do it. Like parachute in or.

Erin Nealy (53:51.669)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (53:54.572)
Fly in what do you mean like parachute in okay?

Abby David (53:57.294)
or parachute in or, you know, what’s the word I’m looking, zip line in, you know. So, all right.

Erin Nealy (54:00.424)
up line.

Anthony Codispoti (54:05.144)
Bit of a daredevil, are you, Aaron?

Erin Nealy (54:07.845)
I do seek some adrenaline and fun, like Abby said. We really try to not take ourselves too seriously. I think what I share with new staff when we’re bringing in and doing onboarding is that fun is one of our unspoken, unwritten values, that we celebrate all the small wins at Bridgeway and try to include the staff in that. And I think over the years,

Anthony Codispoti (54:09.815)
Okay.

Erin Nealy (54:36.041)
we’ve really tried to continue, even though we are now considered a large organization with the number of employees we have, we’ve really tried to keep and maintain that family feel with the teams that we have and the support that we show. And then the other piece to that is that Abby and I have really been intentional, especially since COVID, because COVID was a really challenging.

especially in the education setting and the work that we do that is so close contact with our students and clients, that we really tried to be intentional about giving our staff opportunities to be heard. And so we’re intentional. We actually meet with every single staff member in our building, either in a small group or one-on-one several times a year just to listen.

just to hear what life is like from their perspective, to see if there’s anything that we can do as administrators, working with our board and working with the strategic plan of Bridgeway to meet the needs of our staff better or meet the needs of our students in a better way. And so we’ve been really intentional about listening to staff and taking feedback and really trying to make changes anytime we can to help our staff and our school and therapy center just.

be the best that we can be. So I think that that’s something that’s unique about Bridgeway.

Anthony Codispoti (56:01.294)
I’d like to hear about maybe a personal or professional challenge that each of you have gone through, overcome something, and some of the lessons that you learned going through that experience.

Abby David (56:13.23)
think we both are gonna probably give one of each, you know, so I will say professionally one that together, Erin and I have had to face, you know, because we’re in this together. So we do a lot of together is Erin and I don’t give up. I mean, it’s one thing we’ll tell you, we will, like I said earlier, we will do whatever it takes. When it came to purchasing this building,

It took a lot of work to first find somebody who a bank that would help support it, getting our board involved and making sure that we could have a place because we weren’t able to grow any longer. Like there was no more room for growth. Again, the buildings that we were in weren’t in great condition. We were leasing and we knew how much better we could be if we were all back together again. So.

You know, we have fought for everything for Bridgeway professionally. We have have had to, know, and so, you know, I even had a board member who after. We we got the building and he called and he’s just like, I don’t know why I ever should doubt the two of you because you make it happen. I mean, it was like it was like what? Like the end hour, right, Aaron? Like we were at that hour and it was.

you’re not gonna be able to purchase it, you’re not gonna have the money. And we found a way. I mean, we found some people to believe in us and we got our bank support behind us. And it turned out that somebody internally had a student, a child of their own or a grandchild of their own who had autism and understood the need for the work. so that professionally is one, on a personal one. This is pretty personal, but…

I can tell it because that’s who I am. When we started Bridgeway back in 2005, I was having a really hard time having children. And so for me at that time, that gave me an opportunity to put my hands on something that was more reachable, right? Because I wasn’t able to have children. And so I…

Abby David (58:36.142)
I like, I’m gonna dig my heels in here and I wanna be a part of this. I wanna join forces and I wanna make this happen. Because it sounded like something greater than myself and something that was truly, truly needed and to be a part of it. it gave me something, it gave me hope. I mean, I guess for me personally at the time, it gave me hope and it gave me something. I will let you all know that I did successfully get pregnant with triplets.

Anthony Codispoti (59:02.28)
goodness.

Abby David (59:05.07)
about a year later, yeah, was a year, know, I, I did leave for a while because I went on bed rest. So I don’t know that that might be a professional thing that Erin had to go through. I went on bed rest and but I came back after being gone from middle March to August. And so I had I have triplet boys who are just all started college this year. So that was also a personal issue this year is with the

them all leaving me, but I’m okay. I’ve made it.

Anthony Codispoti (59:38.744)
Thank you for sharing that. How about you, Aaron?

Erin Nealy (59:42.165)
So I think I’ll go in the same order as Abby and share. It’s kind of cliche, and I know everyone is sick of hearing about COVID. But I am really convinced that we took on that COVID challenge. Like Abby said, don’t take no for an answer. We don’t give up. And I think that that really

that really helped pave the way for Bridgeway to come out on the other side of COVID, where a lot of nonprofits did not succeed. A lot of them did not survive COVID and even just the aftermath that the years after COVID, if they did survive COVID, they didn’t in the years after. And I honestly believe that our organization is stronger today than it was and that we were able to

really overcome a lot of challenges and move very quickly and be very nimble during that time to, like Abby said, we were in the middle of acquiring and renovating and fundraising for this huge project that we knew was critical for our students. And so not only were we working to keep our doors open so that our kids could keep learning.

and having the critical therapies that they needed, we were also scrambling to try to get construction done in a building that we desperately needed to move into because our former buildings were literally falling apart around us. And so I think that just our ability to just put our heads down and troubleshoot and move and utilize and incorporate all of our team members through that troubleshooting time.

was really important to us. were able to empower our staff members and our teams to put together opportunities for our kids to come back and learn. We were one of the first, if not the first, academic setting that kids came back to after the pandemic. We actually reopened in May when most schools just went on summer recess and just continued with the closure.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:02.315)
in May of 2020.

Erin Nealy (01:02:04.167)
In May of 2020, we reopened and we did a test run with a small group of staff and students and just continued to have a COVID task force that met regularly to reevaluate policies and procedures to keep our kids and staff safe. And so that time is a time that there were a lot of tears shed, but we really maintained our presence for our students and families.

And they were going through many challenges in the home. If you can imagine, I know a lot of families of neurotypical children talk about the struggle that COVID was doing homeschool, but imagine having kids that didn’t understand that, parents that don’t know how to teach their children, and children that have some really significant needs. Many of our kids were in crisis. So we were able to continue to support them the best that we could during that time. So I’m really proud of that work that we did and then that we

that we opened our doors of our new facility in 2021 to bring those kids back into this new setting. Then for me personally, I would say it’s been a challenge being starting as a business owner, literally right out of college. We did not have jobs for music therapists in the state of Ohio at that time, especially in the city of Columbus.

There were very few positions available, if any, and I knew the work that I was doing was important work. And so I decided to start a private practice initially just right out of school. And I had a really challenging time getting even my family to get behind me in that decision. And so I think that I have come at this work proving myself constantly and then

I’m sure Abby would agree that we’ve continued and even the stories that she shared about our board and the purchase of the building, we’ve constantly had to prove ourselves. And so as a female, as an entrepreneur and a visionary, I think we get a lot of pushback, a lot of people that maybe don’t take us as seriously as they should. And so even still, absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:21.514)
Even still, with all that you’ve done and created.

Erin Nealy (01:04:25.403)
Absolutely. And then some of that is the work that I’ve had to do in my own head and feeling like an imposter or feeling like questioning my own abilities through that because even though we have the passion and the training and we’ve built this amazing organization, there are still days that I struggle with my own mental chatter.

of whether or not I’m the right person for this work or whether or not I deserve to be here. And so I think that that’s been one of the personal things that I’ve had to continually overcome. And it’s not something that I think will ever go away for me personally, but I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done. And sometimes I just have to be able to sit back and allow myself to see that and to see the amazing things that we’ve done and be okay with accepting that.

that we were part of this.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:22.094)
You know, I’m so grateful for both of you for sharing both of your challenge and particularly the personal challenges. You know, I’ve known so many people, family and friends who have struggled with fertility issues and the stress that it places is really hard to put into words for people who haven’t been through that. And so I’m glad that you gave voice to that, Abby.

And I’m even happier to hear that there was a happy outcome. You’ve got, you know, three healthy boys in college now, who I’m sure still love you very much, even though they’re not under roof anymore. Yes, absolutely. And Aaron, it’s so great to hear your personal struggle too about, the mental chatter. Because, you know, we’ve all got that mental chatter, but it’s silent.

Abby David (01:05:57.463)
Thanks, I appreciate that.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:12.726)
Right. It’s not like a broken arm where somebody can see, you know what, I’m sorry. What happened to you? You know, it’s all going on behind the scenes for everybody. And everybody, you know, probably thinks, you know, they’re not, they don’t have their brain sort of, you know, chipping away at them, you know, like, like mine is, and to hear somebody who has been so successful, you building, you’re starting this business 20 years ago and has, you know, grown it into, you know,

Erin Nealy (01:06:13.535)
and

Erin Nealy (01:06:18.601)
Yes.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:38.466)
couple hundred employees, you’re able to help hundreds of students every year. You acquired this huge building and renovated it. And you’re just on this great trajectory. And so for somebody to hear that, wow, look at her and everything she’s done, and she still has this negative chatter. Well, what does that say for me?

Don’t listen to the negative chatter, I think is the lesson there. Like our brains, sometimes they lie to us. They tell us things that are not helpful. And I think your story is a great example of that. So tune that guy out.

Erin Nealy (01:07:09.458)
Absolutely.

Erin Nealy (01:07:17.653)
Thanks.

Abby David (01:07:18.586)
I think it’s really, it’s nice. Erin and I have each other, which is, I will also say, as you hear a lot about friends who go into business together and start work and they’re not friends forever. And I think we have been very lucky to have each other. very different personality in the sense of Erin is more type A.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:32.374)
and

Abby David (01:07:44.736)
I am more type B, you know, and like it’s sometimes we have to, we have to bring each other to different places. Like Abby, this is something you really need to care about. And then it’s me like, Erin, like we can bring it down. Like it’s okay. And so I think it’s been, that’s been helpful, at least for me through all, you know, 20 plus years of friendship and 20 years, obviously this organization that I have, I have a partner. So, you know, we, we do refer to each other as our work wives. I mean, it’s, it’s

We sit across from each other in our office every day, so if she wants to get away from me, she can’t. So I do feel like we’re very, very lucky for that.

Erin Nealy (01:08:18.035)
Ha

Anthony Codispoti (01:08:22.956)
Yeah, you are very fortunate. I just have one more question for the two of you, but before I ask it, I want to do two things. Everyone listening today, you like today’s content, please hit the like, share or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you is that through your website. Is there another way that you prefer? Bridgeway.org, BridgewayOhio.org.

Erin Nealy (01:08:46.069)
That’s correct. Yeah, we’re also both on LinkedIn and social media, but through our website is probably the easiest way to get into direct contact with us. So yeah, we would love to hear from anyone with questions or comments.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:03.374)
Okay, last question for you. What do you think the biggest change is that’s likely to come in the next couple of years to your industry?

Erin Nealy (01:09:12.253)
Ooh, to our industry, not just to our organization.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:15.79)
You can answer that either way you like.

Abby David (01:09:23.007)
Co-organizationally, I’ll start with the organizationally. I think for us, we know that our impact that we’re making is making, we’re making a significant impact here just from our data that we received back from our input from staff and families in particular. And we know that we wanna be more far reaching, but we’re not gonna be able to do that all here personally, maybe.

Erin Nealy (01:09:23.039)
Let’s see.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:24.952)
Okay.

Abby David (01:09:50.986)
under the roof of this building, this brick and mortar. It might not be big enough. You know, we don’t have the money right now to extend out, you know, and make the building bigger, you know, to allow for more classrooms to be built. also, again, still want to have quality over quantity. And so we we I think what you’ll see in the next three, five, ten years is that our reach is farther than these walls, that we will be hopefully out more in the community.

maybe providing more therapy services out at other sites where people need us and they can’t come because of maybe some they’re not able to leave work or they financial barriers. So other barriers that we’re not thinking, you know, that are causing people not to be able to come for therapies and also being able to reach across the country. You know, the United States, like we have a really good program here has lots of evidence. We are evidence based. That is one of our values. And

We don’t want to be a secret any longer. want, you know, we’ve told you the best kept secret. Well, I don’t, we don’t want to be the best kept secret because if it’s working here, it can work in many other states. And so we want to, think, are hopefully we’ll have some more arms and to get out there to make a difference in other communities.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:09.548)
Aaron, anything you’d like to add?

Erin Nealy (01:11:11.923)
Yeah, I think from the industry standpoint, I feel hopeful that we’ve seen some schools, know, part of how Bridgeway started was because some of the schools weren’t able to do some of the intensive learning and individualized learning opportunities that we provide at Bridgeway. And I think school districts are starting to catch up with

ways that they can serve the autism and developmental disabilities community in a more robust way. We’re seeing schools hiring board certified behavior analysts now and kind of trying to provide more individualized opportunities for their students. And so I’m hopeful that we will continue to see that growth in the education system that we’re providing that

we’re able to not provide as much of a cookie cutter model for all learners, right? It’s not just even individuals with developmental disabilities, but that we’re seeing each child as an individual. And that’s my hope that our education system starts to respond to that push from the community of learners that are coming up in schools. They’re understanding that kids are unique, that they aren’t all going to learn with the same pace or in the same way.

So I’m really hopeful about that and hopeful also that funding will start to be prioritized for education for our kids, whether it’s in the public schools or in the private sector, that our kids and their needs require additional funds in order to best serve them and that some kids cannot learn in a classroom with 20 other kids. And so we need to be able to have

the funding support to be able to provide teachers and curriculum and a setting where each individual student can thrive. So I would like to say that I’m hopeful that that will continue to change. It’s a little slower than we would like, but I do see that coming in our society just out of necessity.

Anthony Codispoti (01:13:34.122)
Erin Neely and Abby David, I want to be the first to thank you both for sharing both your time and your stories with us today. I’m grateful for it.

Abby David (01:13:41.976)
Thank you.

Erin Nealy (01:13:42.591)
Thanks so much, Anthony, for having us. We really appreciate being able to share our story.

Anthony Codispoti (01:13:47.256)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories Podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.