Home Education and Careers Christ the Teacher Catholic School to add program for students who need...

Christ the Teacher Catholic School to add program for students who need educational support

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Christ the Teacher Catholic School holds graduation in 2020. Dialog file photo

GLASGOW — Christ the Teacher Catholic School announced April 19 that it will open this fall a new program for students demonstrating a need for educational support. The program, named the McAuley Educational Support Program (MESP), will be housed in the new McAuley Learning Center. Venerable Catherine McAuley is the patroness of Christ the Teacher and the founder of the Sisters of Mercy, who staffed the school from its opening in 2002 until 2020.

Christ the Teacher Catholic School has a long-standing local and national reputation for educating students in the Catholic tradition of excellence, while also infusing the Mercy spirit of hospitality and service upon which we were founded. These core values of CTTCS guided us to begin thinking of ways we can assist our students who present the need for educational support,” principal Stephen Adams said.

At its outset, the program will support students with diagnosed mild learning differences in fourth through eighth grades. They will be required to have recent documentation on file indicating a need for such support. Christ the Teacher administrators will be contacting current families over the next several weeks to determine if any students qualify for MESP.

Shelly Gallo, the program coordinator, will staff MESP in its first year. She will coordinate student-specific action plans, meet with students several times a week and visit classrooms to ensure the students are successful with the tools given to them through the new program. Future goals include hiring a reading specialist by 2022 to support students in younger grades who demonstrate a need through teacher recommendation and observation of student data. There will be a fee associated with the program to support the staffing and materials.

“Christ the Teacher Catholic School has a long history of ensuring that students with learning differences have their needs met through class-wide accommodations. The opening of the McAuley Learning Center is the next logical step of progression that will provide students with documented learning differences the support they need to level the academic playing field,” Gallo said.