Support Services

Title I

Title I, Part A (Title I) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended (ESA) provides financial assistance to local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families to help ensure that all children meet challenging state academic standards.

Under Title I, LEAs are required to provide services for eligible private school students, as well as eligible public school students. In particular, section 1120 of Title I, Part A of the ESEA, requires a participating LEA to provide eligible children attending private elementary and secondary schools, their teachers, and their families with Title I services or other benefits that are equitable to those provided to eligible public school children, their teachers, and their families. These services must be developed in consultation with officials of the private schools. The Title I services provided by the LEA for private school participants are designed to meet their educational needs and supplement the educational services provided by the private school.

At St. John the Evangelist, students who need help in reading or math receive individual help in small group instruction. Remedial help is given to strengthen reading comprehension or math concepts and application skills.

Act 89

Pennsylvania Act 89 provides Intermediate Units with funds to provide auxiliary services to students who are parentally enrolled in the nonpublic schools. Students who are enrolled in kindergarten through grade 12 and who are Pennsylvania residents may be eligible to receive services. These services may include remedial reading and math, speech and language therapy, counseling, and psycho-educational testing. Types of services provided in the nonpublic schools are based on student enrollments and consultation between DCIU and nonpublic school administrators. These are not services that would carry an individualized entitlement for students but, rather, are provided subject to limitations of funding appropriated annually in the state budget.

Auxiliary services include guidance, counseling and testing services, psychological services, services for exceptional children, remedial services, speech and hearing services, services for the improvement of the educationally disadvantaged (such as, but not limited to, teaching English as a second language), and other secular, neutral, non-ideological services of a supplementary and remedial nature.

At St. John the Evangelist, psychological testing is administered by an Intermediate Unit psychologist or specialist. A meeting with the parents involving teachers, principals, and specialists will be scheduled to discuss the results of the testing. The specialist will provide a list of recommendations based on the test results.

Additionally, the Intermediate Unit I provides an itinerant speech and language program of a developmental and remedial nature for speech impaired students in kindergarten through fourth grade, i.e., those whose speech deviates from the accepted standards of their individual social and cultural community in a way that interferes with the communication process. There is also a program provided for language-impaired students, i.e., those whose expressive and/or receptive language skills, either oral and/or graphic, are deviant in terms of grammatical, morphological, and semantic performances.

Counseling

A guidance counselor is available to the students at least one day a week. Students may request this service or be recommended by a parent, teacher, or principal.

Diocesan Testing

St. John the Evangelist Regional Catholic School follows the testing program established by the Diocesan Office of Catholic Schools. The ACT AspireTests are administered to third through eighth grade students in the spring. In addition, the Cognitive Skills Test is given to third, fifth, and seventh grade students. The test results are then shared with parents.