Class Curriculum
The Morning Star program at St. Patrick’s Interparish School serves children in Kindergarten through the 8th grade who are developmentally delayed. We are one of the few programs in the private school setting which strives for inclusion of special education students into the regular educational classroom. The Morning Star program is designed to promote a child's social, emotional, physical and cognitive development. The inclusion program provides an environment in which children in need of special education services are learning with and from their non-disabled peers in an inclusive setting.
Morning Star opened its doors in the 2015/2016 school year with only a handful of students. In the past two years, Morning Star has grown to its current size of seventeen students, two teachers, and four paraprofessionals. All of the students participate in regular classes for the majority of their academic subjects.
The Morning Star program focuses on intense intervention for reading, math, and language arts with a multisensory approach. Additional emphasis is placed on social skills, life skills, expressive and receptive language skills, and executive functioning skills. We provide special education services that meet the individual needs of the child, are developmentally appropriate and strength-based. Accommodations are applied and the curriculum is modified to ensure our student has access to the general education content. These services are planned in collaboration with all staff who are involved in the child's daily academic journey and are provided in a supportive positive learning environment.
The students have individual schedules to meet their needs, with inclusion in enrichment classes, religion, social studies, and science. We use paraprofessionals to assist in the general education classes to support academics and behaviors. In our Morning Star classroom, students work in small groups and on individualized instruction. We strive to teach independence and team work. Morning Star students participate in all school field trips as well.
St. Patrick Interparish School is an official chapter of Best Buddies. It is an international program which pairs up a Buddy student with a student with special needs of the same age. They attend monthly meetings and social functions together. This program builds friendships while offering social mentoring and improving the quality of life and level of inclusion. https://bestbuddies.org/what-we-do/friendship/
Our staff works diligently to fulfill its mission to provide children with special needs the opportunity to embrace and reach their individual potential - to guide and support their individual and unique spiritual, academic, social, physical, and emotional journey.
Interested families should contact the school office, and their information will be directed to one of the Morning Star teachers for additional information