DISCIPLE: Outstanding Support for Exceptional Learners

This article appears in the March-April 2022 issue of the DISCIPLE newsletter. If you are not receiving DISCIPLE in the mail, call the parish office at 763-497-2745 to register as parishioners or update your contact information.

The writing was on the wall spring of 2020: Faced with declining enrollment and a massive budget shortfall, the local public school district could no longer afford to provide special education support at 
St. Michael Catholic School (StMCS). 

“Our students were going to have to leave school multiple times a week and be bussed to the public school for their support time, then bus back,” says StMCS Director of Student Services Mae Paluck. “It just wasn’t an acceptable solution.”  

Mae has a passion for meeting the needs of exceptional learners and their families. She led an effort to look at whether the school could deliver the support the public school had previously provided, onsite and with minimal new money.

“Our school had already established a strong, researched-based, Orton Gillingham reading support system,” she says. “We focus on phonetic skills in the early grades, K-3, with our reading specialist, but also in the classroom every day.”  

While providing solid reading support, StMCS did not have a mathematics specialist to serve struggling learners. A full-time Math Specialist, Cheryl Stephani, was added to the staff—the only new hire brought on board to fill the gaps left by the public school’s absence and the only new school funding spent. Everything else was covered by staff reallocations, dedicated classroom teachers, grant funding, and volunteer support.

“Cheryl teaches two math classes for grades 5 and 6, plus handles evaluations and teacher coaching,” Mae says. “We also purchased Touch Math using EANS [Emergency Assistance to Non-public Schools] funding. It teaches the foundations of math in a simple, hands-on, repetitive way in 10-15 minutes a day.”

With Stephani serving as Touch Math trainer, grade-level paraprofessionals (paras) are now focused almost exclusively on hands-on student support, with parent volunteers assisting with more clerical duties needed to keep classrooms humming. Two paras, Cheryl Lenneman and Cindy Rohr, serve as Success Coaches, working with students on everything from specific learning goals to brain/body breaks to managing impulsivity, anger, or anxiety—daily or as the need arises.  An after-school Power Hour for middle-level students helps with organization, planning, and completing homework on time. 

Healing Moments Counseling in Monticello, which provides school counseling for StMCS, has taken on additional social work support, and LEAP teacher Karen Tracy now oversees in-school occupational therapy needs and more. 

Supportive parents, determined teachers, and a responsive team that is ready to grow with our school have produced an in-house, community-based approach to exceptional learners that is already changing lives.

“With all these things going on, kids aren’t seen as being pulled out for special education; they are served as a whole person, every day,” says Mae. “It’s a mindset—families see more confidence in their children and more growth, not only academically but personally. One mom told me, ‘My son walks taller, he smiles more, he’s coming out of his shell more at home.’ Another family shared they feel their son is getting more service, where he needs it. He’s not a piece of paper; he’s not a test.”

“When we look at what this amazing staff can do today, it’s not two 20-minute sessions with a public-school teacher that was limited by rules and regulations,” she says. “We serve exceptional learners in the classrooms, in the hallways, and in quiet, separate areas, meeting students where they are at today.  At StMCS, every student is family—they are willed, loved, and necessary.”

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How Can You Help?

Inspired by this story? Our school needs parent volunteers for office work (to free up paras for student support), as well as Power Hour support and reading and math practice. Contact the school office at 763-497-3887 for information.

Pictured: Paraprofessional Keri Schoen practices Touch Math with a third-grade student. Photo courtesy of Director of Student Service Mae Paluck.