Goretti E. Rerri has a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in education, specializing in special education, from Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio.
She is certified to teach special education from pre-k through high school in the state of Texas and has been teaching in that capacity in the last seventeen years. Over the span of her career, she has taught students with various forms of disabilities, including autism, downs syndrome, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, ADHD, and learning disabilities.
She has worked as a classroom teacher, a parent trainer, and an In-Home trainer of students with developmental disabilities. Rerri has also mentored a number of new teachers in the field of special education.
An advocate for people with developmental disabilities, Rerri founded Emur Disability Advocacy Incorporated, a non-profit organization, whose flagship is the Emur Awards. The Emur Awards seeks, recognizes, and honors children and adults with developmental disabilities who have made meaningful contributions to their schools or communities. The awards are given yearly in the month of March, in celebration of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month.
My Box of Chocolates: How My Child with Autism Learned to Read, Write and More, is her second book. Her first book, published in 2003, is titled, Ceremonies and Festivals: Marriage, Burial, Chieftaincy, and Annual Festivals in Uvwie-Urhobo, Nigeria.
Rerri, who immigrated to the United States from Nigeria in 1989, has three grown children and lives in Houston, Texas, where she continues to work as a special education teacher.
