MONONA — As the challenging and unique 2020-2021 school year comes to a close, Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) School in Monona can look back on the accomplishment of being able to teach and serve a wider range of its students.
“A Catholic education should be available to everybody,” said IHM Principal Callie Meiller. “Kiddos shouldn’t be not able to experience this because they might have a need that’s a little different from another kid.”
IHM School is now able to accommodate these needs via help from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Special Needs Scholarship Program.
This program has enabled the school to hire a full-time special education teacher and a part-time teacher’s assistant.
Getting the program at the school
The scholarship program was brought to Meiller’s attention three years ago by a school family who had a child with special needs.
She researched the program, including seeing it in action at area schools, and went through some training to learn more about how to help the students with special needs.
She came to the realization that “this could be a really wonderful thing for our school and for the community and for a lot of families who are Catholic, families who desire education, and who don’t believe that we can meet the needs of their kiddos who have special needs or have an individualized education plan.”
Meiller enrolled IHM in the program last spring.
She called it a “miracle in itself” that everything was able to get in place even during the effects of COVID.
Meiller said the school is now able to provide services and help to students that, in the past, they had to find in places outside the school or in other schools.
Meiller said some families that have children with special needs may have felt IHM couldn’t provide the learning methods and resources necessary for their children.
“That’s heartbreaking because [Catholic education] should be available to everybody,” she said.
Benefits of the program
As mentioned, IHM now has a full-time special education teacher that has been a “Godsend,” according to Meiller.
The school has at least 10 students who have an Individualized Education Program that includes help with speech, reading, and math, all with one-on-one or more individualized attention. The special need program helps students ranging from grades kindergarten to eighth grade.
Meiller said the program is helping the school grow its “tight-knit community”. She said the younger students are “becoming very compassionate individuals”.
She added that “You can see Jesus in every single person and they are learning to see that. They are learning that we are not all the same. We don’t all come from the same background. We don’t all have the same struggles or we have strengths and different weaknesses.”
Meiller also said, “Our families get excited about [the program] and they’ve also said they think it’s just such a huge benefit that their kids are in a school where we are welcoming in more people and a more diverse learning community”.
Future goals
Meiller said she hopes to add more full-time special education staff at the school and also be able to offer occupational therapy at the school.
“A Catholic school experience is just such a different school experience than a public school experience because of the community and the people around,” she said.
“I want to continue to make it even more special.”