Over and over again we’ve been told by principals, classroom teachers, and pastors that they would love to be more inclusive but just don’t know how. Here is your roadmap for how to act.

A special issue on inclusion in Catholic schools.

An agenda for serving students with disabilities in Catholic schools

Pastoral statement of U.S. Catholic Bishops on persons with disabilities

There is clear and consistent evidence that inclusive educational settings can confer substantial short- and long-term benefits for students with and without disabilities.

Inclusion in Action Conference 2023, The FIRE Foundation is pleased to present an inclusive education conference for principals, teachers, paraprofessionals and parents who are committed to creating and strengthening K-12 inclusive learning opportunities at their Catholic schools. February 16-17, 2023, virtual and in-person. Virtual taped conference is $99 with affiliate discount.

Sharing innovative, evidence-based information and strategies with families and educators AND connecting families – both to one another and to other educators and professionals – are key aspects of PEAK’s work in Colorado.

The Program for Inclusive Education (PIE) provides a spectrum of learning opportunities to foster the knowledge, skills, and dispositions for inclusive education.

The FIRE Foundation of Denver has adopted as patron saints two people who achieved holiness in this life while coping with very significant disabilities. Blessed Hermann of Richenau (11th c., Germany) and St.Margaret of Castello (13th -14th c., Italy) were both born into noble families but received very different reactions to the difficulties they suffered from birth. Blessed Hermann is believed to have had a cleft palate and cerebral palsy along with other maladies. His parents did what was possible to meet his physical needs and encouraged his intellectual precociousness, which was evident early in his life. At the
age of seven, he was invited to live at the Benedictine monastery on the island of Richenau and attend the cloister school. Despite his difficulties with mobility, speaking, and writing, and Hermann thrived at Richenau, mastering the subjects of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music), eventually becoming a teacher and monk, and even being elected abbot by his brother Benedictines. He is best known today as the author of the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen).

St. Margaret of Castello was born blind and afflicted with dwarfism and severe curvature of the spine. Her parents pretended that she had died at birth and kept her hidden. When she was six, they had a cell built onto their family chapel and shut Margaret up there. Her only visitor was a priest who catechized her through a window and was able to bring her the Eucharist. When Margaret was 15, her parents heard that miracles had been happening in the town of Castello and they took Margaret there hoping that she would be healed. Their prayers were not answered in the way they expected and her parents abandoned Margaret in Castello. She was taken in by a series of townspeople and eventually came to live in a Dominican convent and became a third order Dominican. Margaret spent the rest of her life serving people in Castello: catechizing children, visiting prisoners, and caring for the sick and dying. When she died at the age of 33, she was given the extraordinary honor of burial inside the church. Her body was later discovered to be incorrupt and today lies under the main altar in St. Dominic’s Church in Castello.

St. Margaret and Blessed Hermann, pray for us!