Guidance counselor Monica Velasco plays a “Consequences” boardgame with students at St. Joseph Waipahu. (HCH Photo | Anna Weaver)
Educators seek ways to accommodate students who need different instruction models
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
There’s a cheerful room on the second floor of one of the buildings at St. Joseph School in Waipahu. A bubble tube provides a soothing distraction while a large TV screen plays relaxing music as images of fall leaves fade into each other. The scent of peppermint and eucalyptus drifts from a diffuser.
In one corner are bean bag chairs and an exercise ball on cushioned gym mats. A shelf is stacked with board games and stuffed animals. Across the room is a prayer spot with an opened Bible, an image of Jesus, a crucifix, a framed Our Lady of Guadalupe print, and a candle. By some of the windows are several “fidget” toys.
The room has been around for four years and is overseen by Monica “Rica” Velasco, St. Joseph’s guidance counselor and IT director. Students can come in before and after school, at recess or when needed. She knows the space has worked its effect on kids when “their whole demeanor changes” and they are calmer and ready to head back to class.
This space is one sign of the robust social-emotional learning (SEL) program that the Waipahu school has incorporated across campus and for which both Velasco and St. Joseph have received recent awards.
Fidgets and a prayer corner in the counseling space at St. Joseph School, Waipahu. (HCH Photo: Anna Weaver)
In 2021, Chaminade University of Honolulu gave St. Joseph a Ka Ho’oulu Innovation Award for “incorporating a Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum campus-wide.” And in 2022, Velasco received the Golden Pineapple Teacher of the Year award among Hawaii Catholic school teachers for being a key person in launching the curriculum.
The SEL program, while relatively new to the school, has its roots going back several decades under St. Joseph School’s principal, Beverly Sandobal, who has worked in Hawaii parochial schools for more than 40 years. Early on she saw families who wanted their kids in Catholic schools but whose children didn’t quite fit the type of services St. Joseph provided.
“That led me to try and research, how can we meet the needs of students who maybe are needing a differentiated instruction model,” she said.
Some efforts over the years have included participating in a “Making Room for Everyone” workshop for Leeward-area Catholic schools, participating in Schools Attuned, going to the Andrew Greeley Center at Loyola Chicago to learn about inclusive Catholic schools, and creating today’s SEL curriculum. As a part of the school’s 2020 accreditation plan, it became especially vital in the wake of COVID-19.
“I think it was the pandemic that really gave everyone the motivation to take off and make sure that it was a priority,” Velasco said.
It’s important for all St. Joseph teachers to have “buy in” to the SEL and inclusive education concepts, Sandobal said.
“It’s not just about the money but us being open to just what [students’] needs are,” she said.
“It started out with professional development and really how to incorporate social-emotional learning just with you as an individual,” Velasco said. “You can’t really teach it if you don’t have it yourself.”
St. Joseph School, Waipahu, principal Beverly Sandobal and the school’s curriculum and instruction director Jill Yamashiro talk by the school’s Word of the Week bulletin board, which highlights a different social-emotional term each week. (HCH Photo: Anna Weaver)
Next came tools teachers could use in the class throughout the school day and in a once-a-week lesson. A social-emotional “Word of the Week” is prominently displayed on a bulletin board near the front office. A new mural with themes of SEL and Catholic values is on one of the walls of the school’s portal classrooms.
St. Joseph teachers have an annual retreat focusing on spirituality and social-emotional learning for themselves and their students. Potential new hires are also told about the role of SEL at St. Joseph.
And to make sure that students with specific learning differences are getting the support they need, the school’s curriculum and instruction director Jill Yamashiro assesses any academic issues while Velasco provides insight into any behavioral issues.
Part of the goal of being an inclusive Catholic school is helping students be aware that kids learn differently and sometimes need extra support.
“We’re trying to make children understand that Jesus doesn’t judge people,” Sandobal said. “He accepts everybody and there’s a unique gift that everybody has.”
Glenn Medeiros
Yamashiro’s husband, Rick, is a St. Joseph graduate and a counselor at James Campbell High School. He runs a project-based learning program at St. Joseph on the weekends. He has also advised Sandobal over the years. Sandobal cites Yamashiro and Glenn Medeiros as people who helped her see the possibilities of being an inclusive Catholic school.
A bit of history
Medeiros, St. Louis School’s president, started off his career in education at St. Joseph, Waipahu, first as a teacher and then as an administrator for the Schools Attuned (All Kinds of Minds) program. In the early 2000s, a grant secured by the then-associate superintendent of Hawaii Catholic Schools, Louise Wong, allowed Sandobal, Medeiros and Wong to travel to North Carolina for training by the program’s founder.
Eventually, other Hawaii Catholic school teachers received Schools Attuned professional development training.
“The concepts they learned from it were really great,” Medeiros said. “It really breaks down the mind and how kids think cognitively.”
He says it’s possibly the best professional development training he’s received as an educator.
“I think as educators we often think to ourselves, if the student just tries his or her best, they’ll be okay,” Medeiros said. “But in some cases, people try their best and their minds aren’t necessarily wired to learn in a particular way. So, you have to kind of get in there and figure out how can you teach this kid the skills they need to learn so that they can learn it in their own way using their strengths.”
At St. Louis, Medeiros believes technology can help take the load off teachers in figuring out how individual students learn best. Online testing can show a student’s strengths and weaknesses.
St. Louis has a dean of personalized learning responsible for student testing and recommending curriculum, books and other tools for specific students.
Since COVID forced schools to go online for a time, many teachers are now more comfortable with online tools and that in turn could lead to more individualized teaching through technology.
“The hardest part about this is, as with everything in life, it comes down to finances,” Medeiros said.
Maryknoll School
Dan Nagami
Over at Maryknoll School, Dan Nagami, the middle/high school division head, believes that the Honolulu co-educational pre-K through high school is getting a positive reputation for working with families who have students who learn differently or need more support in the school day.
Nagami worked as a Hawaii public school teacher, including in special education, before coming to Maryknoll. He believes it’s a part of a Catholic school’s makeup to have a servant mentality.
“If a family comes in and there’s a possibility of a need, we’re always going to be willing to listen,” Nagami said. “It’s not a 100% guarantee that we can help the family out, but we are willing to see if we are a good fit.”
Maryknoll can make accommodations because of “excellent people” on the faculty and staff including a counselor with a mental health background. The school can work with any outside therapists or aides whom parents may want to bring in to help their kids.
A support team made up of an administrator and school counselors meets monthly to go over individual students’ accommodations. In his division of grades 6-12, he sees around 15-20% of kids with some type of accommodation.
One success story Nagami recalled was a student who spent seven years at Maryknoll with the help of an outside aide paid for by the family. The family wanted a more academically challenging environment than they thought he could receive in a public school.
Several recent cases he’s been contacted about involve families wanting to keep their kids in private schools because of their smaller environment, academics and safety.
It doesn’t always work to keep a student with special needs at Maryknoll, Nagami said, but they are open to trying. Basic requirements for considering a student are that the family knows religion is taught in this Catholic school setting, that parents are transparent about why they want to switch a child to Maryknoll, and that there is a discussion among Maryknoll’s support team as to whether the school would be a fit for the child.
At St. Joseph, principal Sandobal has found that parents are often surprised to find that the school is willing to make accommodations.
“Some parents are afraid to identify that their child has a special requirement because they are afraid that it will be an automatic no,” she said. “We try to accommodate the needs that they have within reason.”
“We’re really close-knit family environment and they really, truly believe that when they come to our school that their child is safe,” Velasco said. “And especially when their child has special needs, that for a parent is very important.”
