U.S. Education Officials Inspect PVI's Options Program

By Mary McCarthy
Herald Staff Writer
(From the issue of 2/6/03)

FAIRFAX — U.S. Department of Education officials visited Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax last week to learn more about the programs the school offers for students with special needs.

Elizabeth Wonder, director of special programs at Paul VI, led the visitors on a tour of the classrooms as they discussed the steps that Catholic schools are making to help these students and what the Department of Education can do the help private schools. The visit was initiated by Marie Powell, assistant secretary for parental advocacy from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Department of Education. Powell served as academic dean at Paul VI. She wanted to show the U.S. Department of Education why non-public schools should get more funding for projects for students with special needs. Powell is also a former superintendent of schools for the Arlington Diocese.

Powell was joined by Oblate Father William Davis, assistant secretary of the USCCB Department of Education. Father Davis was diocesan superintendent of schools when Paul VI opened in 1983.

William Hansen, Nina Shokraii Rees, Jack Klenk and Maureen Dowling represented the U.S. Department of Education. Hansen is the Deputy Secretary of Education. Rees was recently appointed to the position of Deputy Undersecretary for Innovation and Improvement and she has served as a top adviser to President George W. Bush on educational issues.

Klenk and Dowling are both from the Office for Non-Public Education. Klenk is the acting director of that office. Dowling served as principal at Blessed Sacrament School in Alexandria before working for the Department of Education.

This year, of the 1,140 students at Paul VI, more than 150 students have identified disabilities. Paul VI offers three programs to help many of these students.

The Options Program currently has 12 students enrolled. These students have developmental disabilities as a result of mental retardation. With the help of peer volunteers, the students in the Options Program attend at least two mainstream classes each semester. Students who complete the Options Program receive a Certificate of Achievement at graduation in June. The last year of the program focuses on job placement.

Philip Robey, Paul VI principal, joined the guests before the tour. In regard to working with students in the Options Program, Robey said, "It kind of reminds us that we’re human. We learn from them."

Robey emphasized that Paul VI is a college preparatory school with 97 percent of its students going to college. In addition to offering the Options Program to students with developmental disabilities, the school offers programs for students with mild learning disabilities to help those students get into college.

DeSales Learning Center currently has 54 students enrolled. Each of these students has been diagnosed with a specific learning disability. Students in this program receive special attention from instructors to help them achieve the standard Paul VI diploma, which will qualify them for college. Students in the program will spend time in the learning center twice a day as freshmen, and once a day as upperclassmen.

The Academic Support Program helps approximately 70 students each semester. This program is for students with or without an identified disability. All students in this program are taking mainstream classes and working toward the Paul VI diploma and the opportunity to further their education in college. The Academic Support Program helps students to acquire organizational skills and good study habits.

According to a study commissioned by the USCCB, Catholic schools enroll a greater percentage of students with special needs than public schools. These students include those with hearing impairments, developmental delays, uncorrected vision impairments, traumatic brain injuries and other health-related impairments.

According to the same study, less than 1 percent of Catholic students diagnosed with a disability receive services funded through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997 (IDEA). Due to this, 34 percent of all services provided to these disabled students at Catholic schools are funded through Catholic school tuition. At Paul VI, the special needs programs are all funded mostly through added tuition. The programs can cost over $3,000 in addition to standard tuition.

As a result of this study, the USCCB is hoping that steps can be made so that the parents of special needs children do not have to choose between paying out of pocket for a Catholic education and sending their child to a public school to access IDEA services.

When IDEA was reauthorized in 1997, services provided by public schools were decreased. In the past, public schools had provided equipment and transportation to private schools, but they are no longer required to do that.

Wonder shared her own experience of the difficulties of providing services to students with special needs who attend private schools. Wonder is the mother of a child who was in need of speech and language classes. She had to transport her daughter from her parochial school, to the public school near their home, and back to the Catholic school in the middle of the school day. Not only was this inconvenient for Wonder, but her daughter would miss over an hour of her regular classes twice a week to take her speech classes. Wonder said that this problem leads to many students not receiving the speech therapy that they need. All of the students in the Options Program qualify for speech and language therapy, but Wonder is not aware of any student that is receiving it.

She added that none of the special programs offered at Paul VI receive federal, or state funding. Parents are responsible for raising funds even beyond tuition costs. In reference to the visit from the Department of Education, Wonder said, "We are happy to demonstrate what a Catholic school can do for children with disabilities." She hopes that the Department of Education will realize what Catholic schools can do, and extend assistance to either parents of students with special needs, or to private schools that cater to these students.  

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