An article in The Washington Post features good news for parents who hope to find Catholic schools capable of providing services for children with disabilites:

Forty-two percent of Catholic elementary schools in the United States had a resource teacher to help students with special needs in 2008-09, up from 28 percent in 2001-02, according to the National Catholic Educational Association….Many Catholic schools now offer support for students with learning disabilities such as attention-deficit disorder or Asperger syndrome. The portion equipped to enroll students with intellectual disabilities, historically defined as those scoring below 70 or 75 on an IQ test, is still small, but it, too, is growing.

The article also features the Catholic Coalition for Special Education, an organization that raises funds and offers grants to support the hiring of resource teachers in Washington D.C.- and Maryland-area Catholic schools. The video below features a few of the students they’ve assisted.

 

While I would have liked to hear comments from one or two of the students with special needs, overall, the video presents some great stories about the kinds of opportunities made possible by the organization.  Definitely worth watching.

Kerry Weber joined the staff of America in October 2009. Her writing and multimedia work have since earned several awards from the Catholic Press Association, and in 2013 she reported from Rwanda as a recipient of Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship. Kerry is the author of Mercy in the City: How to Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Visit the Imprisoned, and Keep Your Day Job (Loyola Press) and Keeping the Faith: Prayers for College Students (Twenty-Third Publications). A graduate of Providence College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously worked as an editor for Catholic Digest, a local reporter, a diocesan television producer, and as a special-education teacher on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.