For years, Darrell Gilchrist struggled to locate the right school for his 13-year-old daughter Moesha. And when he finally found Ewing’s Sister Georgine School – a small, private facility designed for children with special needs – it seemed like the perfect fit.

But only three years later, Gilchrist received the news that his daughter – along with five other special needs students at Sister Georgine – will be reassigned by the Trenton School District come September. Several will be sent to Trenton’s Daylight-Twilight High School, an alternative model school designed for troubled students who have experienced difficulties in a traditional school setting.

With no explanation given for the transfer and, in some cases, not even knowing where their children are being sent next year, the concerned parents are taking a stand to fight the district’s edict. The parents have all filed for a due process hearing, which is currently scheduled for June 28.

For Gilchrist, the thought of his daughter returning to public school brings back memories of the difficulties that Moesha faced before coming to Sister Georgine.

“She was in another school… and she wasn’t being watched,” he recalled. “You had kids spitting on her hair, punching her in the chest. I had to go over there several times to make a complaint and even when I did that nothing got done.

“So I pulled her out of that school and she wound up at Sister Georgine, and ever since it has been a joy.”

At Sister Georgine, Gilchrist said, his daughter has found a caring environment with qualified teachers who devote their time to meeting each child’s individual needs.

“They do so much for her and she’s so happy at that school,” he said. “And when I heard about [the district’s decision], I knew it is going to break her heart, and that is going to break my heart as well.”

Willing to Fight
Sister Georgine, a state-approved private school for children with educational disabilities, is able to serve students from public school districts when the public schools do not have adequate programs in place to meet those children’s needs. The children remain under the auspices of the district, which pays their tuition at Sister Georgine using funds that would have been spent on the child’s public school education.

Six of Sister Georgine’s 15 current students were placed in the school by the Trenton Public School District. But in a letter dated Feb. 3, David Weathington, Trenton’s assistant superintendent for special services, informed Franciscan Sister Barbara Furst, principal of Sister Georgine, that although the district appreciates the school’s “dedication and commitment of providing instructional programs for our students with disabilities,” it would not support the program for the 2010-2011 school year.

The letter did not provide any further explanation for the district’s decision nor any additional details on the transfer. As of press time, the school district had not responded to The Monitor’s requests for comment.

According to New Jersey’s special education law, N.J.A.C. 6A:14, the district is fully within its rights to remove the students. But the parents, under the same statute, have the right to file for a due process hearing should they not agree with the district’s placement of their children.

“The parents still have a right to an education for their children in a place they believe will be good for them,” Sister Barbara said. “We hope that in the due process the district understands the parents’ desire for [their children] to be in the school they have been most successful in.”

Children’s Best Interests
News of the school district’s decision has generated a wide range of emotions for parents, from sadness to anger to fear.

“I was scared,” Felix Montanez, father of 12-year-old student Diana Corado, said of his reaction to the news.

Montanez explained that Diana, who suffers from Down Syndrome, functions best in familiar surroundings and a one-on-one teaching environment, which she has been able to receive at Sister Georgine. Since being assigned there four years ago, Montanez said his daughter has shown great improvement and has become very attached to the school.

“When she gets up in the morning, that’s the first thing she wants to do – she wants to go to school,” he said.

Although he hasn’t yet been informed of what school his daughter is being transferred to, Montanez said he is doubtful that a new school will offer the nurturing environment that Sister Georgine has provided.

“It is not going to be the same to take her to another school,” Montanez said. “She already knows the teachers and she knows the students (at Sister Georgine). It is like taking a child away from their family, and that is not good.”

Yolanda Seigle expressed similar concerns about her granddaughter, Yolanda Hayes. She said she doesn’t understand why the district is removing Hayes from Sister Georgine now and, like the other parents, has not been given an explanation.

“My granddaughter is doing great, and not only that, but in three more years she’d be graduating,” Seigle said. “She was going there for eight years and there was no problem. What happened now?”

At Sister Georgine, Seigle said, her granddaughter has had many beneficial opportunities, such as doing volunteer work in St. Francis Medical Center, Trenton, and learning ways to function more independently. The school has also been a positive environment where special needs students are treated with respect and dignity, something Seigle fears her granddaughter would not find at the Daylight-Twilight School, where she has been assigned for next year.

“This school, they take the time out, they have the patience,” Seigle said of Sister Georgine. “If she goes to that other school, she is going to shut down.”

Seigle said that Hayes, who will be turning 18 and would under normal circumstances continue attending school to the age of 21, would actually be better off dropping out of school than being placed in a setting that could negatively impact her.

“If she doesn’t go back to Sister Georgine in September… I am just going to teach her at home myself,” Seigle said. “But I hope not. I would love for her to stay there.”

Specialized Education
With an enrollment of only 15 students, Sister Georgine is able to provide a specialized education that is continuously evolving to meet the students’ needs, Sister Barbara said. The school focuses on “functional academics” and vocations training that gives the students the skills to navigate the world they live in and to cultivate their individual talents so that they can find jobs after graduation.

“We want them to see themselves as people with gifts like everybody has,” Sister Barbara said. “Our focus here is to engage them in those talents so that they know what they are and that they can use them… We move them into things that help them to be better citizens, better people.”

By comparison, the Daylight-Twilight school has a student body of more than 400 and thus possesses a much higher student-teacher ratio. The school is designed as an alternative model setting with its primary goal being to provide a second chance for students who have failed or dropped out of traditional schools or who have had behavioral issues that could not be handled in a regular school setting.

The 2008 No Child Left Behind Report indicates that the school has failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress standards and is classified as “in need of improvement.” The report indicates that the school had a 59 percent dropout rate among students with disabilities in 2008. The Daylight-Twilight School was also the subject of a 2008 investigation by the Trenton Board of Education over irregularities in its graduation requirements.

Anthony Carsella, who has taught at Sister Georgine for seven years, said that special needs students thrive in a setting that allows them to follow a familiar routine. Sister Georgine gives them that opportunity, he said, along with the kind of attention they wouldn’t get in another school.

“You couldn’t get a better staff to student ratio anywhere in the world,” Carsella said. “Everybody can be on their own pace here as opposed to a class’ pace. We are all for doing things as a group but as individuals the students need to progress on their own, and there are endless opportunities for that here.”