On any given day, thousands of area children are learning and succeeding in our public schools.  Across the region, dedicated educators and administrators pour their energy, their best ideas, and their enthusiasm into their classrooms, and they get results.  For many students, school is a positive place of discovery and growth.  But not for all.

      Some students face overwhelming obstacles, and for them, learning is frankly impossible in a classroom, no matter how creative the methods or determined the teacher.  These students have specific, identifiable needs that have not been met in the public schools, and they fail over and over again.

       Until, that is, their struggles are brought to the attention of the public schools' special education professionals who can offer them placements in one of the region's MANSEF or DCASE schools, such as Pathways.  These  schools have the flexibility to tailor their educational and therapeutic programs to meet the students' individual needs.  This email newsletter, The Pathfinder, has for several months documented stories of how this works at our school: small, success-oriented instructional settings, individual and group therapy, transition services, and more enable our students to reach their goals.

    Working in partnership with the public schools, Pathways and other MANSEF and DCASE schools provide an essential

Pathways-Anne Arundel 2010 graduates

piece in the education of our area's special needs students.  We make it possible for the public schools to provide a seamless continuum of educational programming, so that all students can receive a quality education and thrive.                     

    The fact is that nonpublic schools are not optional.  The cost of giving every student a quality education that enables them to succeed in school and in life is far less than the cost of supporting an individual through repeated failures to achieve in education, socialization, and economic independence.  Pathways and the other MANSEF and DCASE schools are needed partners with the public schools, providing an essential component in the educational system's goal of providing our society with young people who are prepared to be the builders of our future, a goal which can be "translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation".

When The Pathways School-DuVal Re-Entry opened in 1989, it was the first-of-its-kind program for students with emotional disabilities within a public high school.   Pathways piloted the re-entry transition program in collaboration with Prince George's County Public Schools.  Today Pathways-DuVal Re-Entry serves up to 25 students,  enabling them to integrate successfully into classrooms at DuVal High School. The program has been so effective that in 2005 Prince George's County Public Schools asked Pathways to open a similar program within Crossland High School.  

   Pathways-DuVal Re-Entry offers a curriculum with instruction that will satisfy state and county requirements for a Maryland high school diploma.  At the same time, students receive academic and therapeutic support that helps them to take as many mainstream classes as possible and enables them to participate in DuVal's extracurricular activities and sports.  In addition to academics, Pathways students learn study skills and practice social and coping skills.  They receive individual and group therapy and individualized behavior management, all designed to support them to integrate as fully as possible into the classes and life of DuVal High School.  The program is a thriving example of the partnership between nonpublic and public schools that creates the continuum of academic and therapeutic support that special needs students require to succeed.

      The small, school-within-a-school setting at DuVal Re-Entry allows the Pathways staff to tailor lessons and design projects to build on each student's strengths and

to encourage creativity, self-awareness and a sense of community and connection.

Quilt square

     In response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti last year, a student group began working on a quilt to be sent to one of the orphanages set up to help children who lost parents in the disaster.  Each Pathways student made a unique quilt square, putting on it messages of hope and words of encouragement.  The students used bright colors, both to reflect the cultural traditions of Haiti--a land of bold colors--and to evoke a positive spirit.  The quilt project has continued into this year.

      Also this year, Pathways-DuVal Re-Entry students participated in a series of poetry workshops with poet-in-residence Carol Peck.  They took part in HoopEd, the unique program that uses the game of basketball to teach life lessons.  They are beginning to attend a "homework club" over lunch, where they can get extra support as they adjust to the expectations of high school and prepare to meet those of college.  And they continue to participate in a DuVal-wide recycling program for which they provided the initial leadership and start-up energy.

        Pathways students not only participate in the academic and social life of DuVal High School, they also make a positive contribution to it.  The relationship between the nonpublic program and the public school is both necessary in terms of meeting the needs of special education students and vital to the quality of education for all students at DuVal.