In any classroom of students, a certain percentage of them struggle with learning disabilities, often undiagnosed. Catholic schools traditionally lacked the resources to provide special education services available at public schools. But that situation is changing as a group of local Catholic educators create ways to make classrooms more inclusive.

The fact that a majority of Catholic elementary school administrators believe inclusion to be a top priority, based on the results of a principals' survey taken last September, is a positive sign, according to Jayne Quinn, principal of St. Charles Borromeo School in North Hollywood and member of the archdiocesan two-year-old inclusion committee.

"We have to change, we have to be on the cutting edge," said Quinn. Her school is one of 93 in the archdiocese that has implemented "student success teams" helping students with mild to moderate learning disabilities achieve success in a Catholic classroom with their nondisabled peers. Among the 103 Catholic school administrators participating in the survey who have not instituted student success teams, 85 anticipate doing so in the future.

"We want to be able to reach children with learning disabilities," said Nora Masterson, who was just hired this year as a full-time learning specialist at St. Paul the Apostle School in Westwood. Masterson initially worked as a consultant at the school to run a pullout, fee-based program, Essential Learning System, for students with learning difficulties. Her fascination with how different children's brains work, resulting in diverse learning styles, led her to pursue a master's degree in Catholic Inclusion Education at LMU.

"Ten percent of every group of students will have a learning disability, such as attention deficit disorder, auditory or visual processing challenges," said Masterson. "These students are not able to make sense of information or store and retrieve it as easily as their peers."

Masterson is currently working with 10-15 students, conferring closely with their parents and teachers to discuss helpful accommodations such as allowing more time for tests or reduced assignments.

"Every year, teachers become more and more receptive," she said, noting that the concept of "differentiated instruction," where teachers tailor their lesson plans to accommodate different learning styles, has "come into its own within the last five years."

Dr. Victoria Graf, director of LMU's certificate and master's degree inclusion program, said the teachers taking the inclusion classes are highly motivated. "I think they recognize there's such a great need," she said.

According to Graf, the six-year-old inclusion program at LMU has already made a "huge" difference in the archdiocese as graduates of the program apply what they have learned at their home schools. She pointed out that three inclusion master's degree candidates and two certificate students sit on the archdiocesan inclusion committee.

"Collaboration between the university and the archdiocese has been wonderful," declared Graf. She said the challenge facing proponents of inclusion is finding ways to think creatively to build new models of instruction that embrace different styles of learning. "There's a lot of models on the East Coast," she observed.

Prep school success

Dr. Merritt Hemenway, principal of Bishop Amat Memorial High School in La Puente, started working on inclusion immediately upon accepting his second stint as principal at the school in July of 2002. Prior to returning to Bishop Amat, he had been principal at Santa Margarita High School in Rancho Santa Margarita in the Diocese of Orange.

Bishop Norman McFarland of Orange (now retired) challenged Hemenway in 1995 to find a way to teach Catholic students who were being turned away because of learning difficulties. After adding nine inclusion staff members over a five-year period, including two learning specialists and a testing coordinator who provided a range of assessment and after-school tutoring services, the academic performance of approximately 150 special needs students improved dramatically. Within three years, no one in the 1,800 student body flunked out, noted Hemenway.

"Everybody can learn; you just have to find out how to teach them --- our job is to give them learning skills," said Hemenway. "Parents have to get over the mystique that Catholic schools won't take students with special needs. Students with learning disabilities can learn in a college prep environment. The hard part is the fact that not one shoe fits all."

Hemenway spent the first year of the inclusion project at Bishop Amat educating the teachers on how the human brain works and the diversity of learning styles. Teachers were asked to retire outmoded ways of labeling struggling students. Paraphrasing the philosophy of renowned educator Dr. Michael Elliott, Hemenway counseled his staff: "There's no such thing as a lazy child --- just a child who doesn't fit in a particular environment and gets turned off."

After funding a part-time staff member to work with a handful of learning disabled students the second year, Hemenway hired a full-time learning specialist and LMU inclusion master's recipient, Gabrielle Benson, who is currently providing services to 25 students this year.

Working out of her new learning resource center, a converted classroom and former chapel, Benson is the school's liason between families and teachers of learning disabled students. "The most challenging thing is getting parents to realize that we're here to help and services are available for their children," said Benson.

She schedules consultations with parents of special needs students, where they are encouraged to contribute ideas on types of accommodations the school can make to help their child. Such accommodations include extended test times, cooperative learning, peer tutoring, shorter assignments, books on tape and distraction-free testing available in the learning resource center.

Currently, Benson is working with members of the Honor Society to arrange weekly one-on-one tutoring sessions at the center. To hold down expenses, Benson is also recruiting honor students to record books on the required reading list so the school can start building its own books-on- tape library.

"Kids are changing --- education hasn't caught up," said Benson. Teachers at Bishop Amat are encouraged to use a range of modalities in the classroom besides lecturing, such as having the students participate in cooperative learning where members of different groups take on different tasks. "In this way," Benson explained, "everyone in the group has a role and a student with special needs has a chance to contribute."

Lobbying for change

For several years, private school educators have lobbied Congress to revise the restrictive Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments passed in 1997. Prior to the law's passage, private school students with special needs could receive direct services from public school districts.

"Congress never fully funded IDEA," said St. Joseph of Carondelet Sister Patricia Supple, archdiocesan director of federal and state programs for the past 18 years. "Public school districts are scrambling for money to serve special needs students." Instead of receiving 40 percent federal funding as originally promised, school districts have to provide special education services supplemented by a mere 8 percent of federal funds.

"The only money that private school children have access to is that 8 percent from the federal government," sister explained. With a limited budget, some school districts have stopped providing direct services to private school students. While private school students are entitled to assessment testing in their school district of residence, students identified as having learning disabilities in some districts no longer receive special resource help.

Sister Supple, who recently returned from a Federal Assistance Advisory Committee meeting in Dallas where Catholic educators formulate recommendations to the U.S. Bishops' Conference, said members are pushing hard for increased funding in a revised IDEA as well as direct services and on-site services for private school students. In addition, committee members are asking legislators to change the location of the school service provider from the student's district of residence to location of the student's school.

"We are praying for a new IDEA bill to be passed," Hemenway declared, adding that students from 16 different school districts attend Bishop Amat High School. The revised IDEA, passed by both the Senate and House, is currently in conference revisions. Catholic educators are hopeful that the revised bill will be made into law before Congress adjourns in December.

'Nature delights in diversity, why can't human beings?' --- Bumper sticker viewed on 10 Freeway