Vogelweid Learning Center’s Wekenborg receives national honor

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Paula Wekenborg was in eighth grade at St. Peter School in Jefferson City when her aunt volunteered to lead the Girl Scout troop for students of the school’s Special Education Program.

The aunt asked Paula to help.

“The kids in special-ed were in a separate building back then, so this was my first real interaction with them,” Mrs. Wekenborg recalled. “I really enjoyed getting to know the girls. I think that’s what sparked my interest in special-ed and got me into teaching.”

She believes the everyday interactions among all students of St. Peter School, including the Vogelweid Learning Center, are having the same effect.

“I’m convinced that for our current students, whatever they go on to do and be, the mentality of empathy and acceptance is going to keep growing as they get older and hopefully send their own kids to St. Peter,” said Mrs. Wekenborg, director of the Vogelweid Learning Center at St. Peter.

Mrs. Wekenborg recently received a “Lead. Learn. Proclaim.” Award from the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA).

Presented at the April 11-13 NCEA Convention in Dallas, the award highlights the outstanding work of Catholic school educators in communities across the country.

Mrs. Wekenborg is one of only 10 Catholic educators nationwide to receive the award this year.

“Catholic schools excel because excellent people give it their all to love them into being,” stated Lincoln Snyder, NCEA president and CEO.

“We are humbled by the Christian witness this year’s honorees offer to their Catholic school communities,” she said.

Mrs. Wekenborg joined the St. Peter School faculty in 1996 and transferred full-time to the Vogelweid Learning Center a year later.

She has been the center’s director since 2006.

“The way I see it, I inherited the program as a caretaker, because the real vision and the real work was accomplished in 1964 by those legacy families who wanted all of their kids to attend school here at St. Peter’s,” she said.

“They’re the ones who had the vision, saw what this should be and figured out how to get it started,” she stated.

Everyone learns

The Vogelweid Learning Center began the early 1960s, when several St. Peter Parish families urged longtime pastor Monsignor Joseph Vogelweid to set up a special-education division at St. Peter School.

They were adamant about providing a Catholic education to their children with disabilities.

Money in the parish and school was very tight at that time. Some school board members were concerned about taking on any additional responsibilities. But the iconic Msgr. Vogelweid did convince the board and the rest of the parish that they could and should welcome children with special needs.

He and a fellow priest from St. Louis recruited Sister Adele (formerly Sister Matthew Marie) Hulling, a School Sister of Notre Dame who had studied at two schools of special education, to be the first special-education administrator and teacher.

The St. Peter Special Education Program opened on Sept. 9, 1964, with 15 students.

Since then, the program, renamed the Vogelweid Learning Center in 1984, has grown to become an integral part of every subject and every grade level of St. Peter School.

It now functions as a special-services program for children of widely diverse learning needs. The variety and depth of these services — coupled with the level of integration with the rest of the students of St. Peter School and the collaboration among all the teachers — makes the Vogelweid Learning Center genuinely unique.

“The profile of our students has changed through the years,” Mrs. Wekenborg noted. “Parents expect more than they did when we were founded. They want their kids in regular-ed classes for academic and social/emotional opportunities.”

As a result of this ethic, students throughout the school interact effortlessly with classmates who have special needs, because they’ve been doing so since kindergarten.

“I don’t necessarily have a classroom,” said Mrs. Wekenborg. “But all the students in school are my students.”

Everyone benefits

The Vogelweid Center helps students across a broad spectrum of needs, including those who come to the center for any or all of their core classes but spend the rest of their learning time in a general-ed classroom; those who spend their whole time in general-ed classrooms with support from an aide or with some form of accommodation or adaptation; and those who receive some kind of accommodation but don’t otherwise require any specialized support.

Vogelweid includes three full-time certified special-education teachers, two full-time aides, and Mrs. Wekenborg, the full-time director, who coordinates all of these things.

“Also, some of our kids qualify for various therapies and services through the public school district that are provided on-site,” she noted. “Nurturing a positive relationship with the Jefferson City School District is a big part of our students’ success and their staff always works toward the students’ best interests.”

She said she’s first and foremost an educator — a Catholic one at that.

She’s convinced that offering inclusive learning options and helping every student in a Catholic school succeed to the best of his or her ability is part of what makes St. Peter School truly Catholic.

“When you take it from a perspective of Catholic social justice and teaching, this is what we’re called to do — to serve justly and inclusively to ensure success for ALL students,” she said.

What’s more, research shows that all students benefit from including children with and without cognitive and physical disabilities in the same classroom.

“There are numerous studies, including a program at Notre Dame University called the Program for Inclusive Education — or PIE,” said Mrs. Wekenborg. “Data shows that when you have mixed classrooms, all students — the neurotypical kids and the ones with special needs — achieve higher than if they were heavily segregated one way or another.”

She pointed out that no form of inclusion could happen without the commitment and cooperation of the school’s general education teachers.

“All of our teachers at St. Peter truly believe that all students have something important to offer in the classroom and that we really are better off learning together,” she said.

Constant improvement

Mrs. Wekenborg said it was nearly unimaginable for a community the size of Jefferson City to offer a Catholic special education program in the 1960s.

In fact, it’s still quite unusual.

“We really are ahead of the curve and would be a model for a lot of schools,” she said. “But we’re still always asking, ‘What can we learn? What should we change? How can we improve? What more should we be doing for all learners?’”

She’s quick to praise the parents, parishioners, pastors, staff and students down through the years who worked hard, sacrificed, and helped make Vogelweid what it is and continue to help it endure and improve.

“You know, it takes a lot of commitment to keep funding a program like this,” she said. “A lot of schools say they cannot even begin a program like this because of the commitment it takes. But here, the people have always been supportive through the years.”

The impulse to innovate has been constant since the center’s founding.

“Every director who served before me has evolved the program to meet student needs,” Mrs. Wekenborg stated. “Education is constantly evolving, as well as what we’re trying to provide here.”

She said she’s learned from all the educators she’s worked with at Vogelweid, including longtime faculty member Sister Bernadette Forck of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word (CCVI), and Peggy Gretlein, the center’s previous director.

“Peggy was quite the visionary,” said Mrs. Wekenborg. “She was always having us ask, ‘Where do we want to go, and what should we be learning in order to get there?’”

Mrs. Wekenborg stopped in San Antonio on the way to Dallas to visit with Sr. Bernadette and several other retired CCVIs from Jefferson City.

“Sr. Bernadette was such a big part of Vogelweid for so many years,” said Mrs. Wekenborg. “She was greatly loved and respected by everyone and I learned so many things from her — about being a good teacher and about the kindness and the acceptance she always showed to the kids.”

A distinct calling

Mrs. Wekenborg often turns to God in prayer.

“It’s always, ‘Please guide me to help these kids develop to their fullest potential and cultivate the gifts you’ve given them,’” she said.

She emphasized that “fullest potential” encompasses every aspect of every child.

“Whatever God has given to them, we want those qualities to shine and be developed,” she said. “Oftentimes, you do have to help develop those characteristics. God created those gifts and gave them to them, but we have to help them shine.

“That’s true for every student, regardless of his or her ability level,” she observed.

She said that while Catholic school educators know from the beginning that they’ll be making some serious sacrifices, the rewards are indescribably satisfying.

“If you ask anyone who has taught for a while and stuck through the tough times, they can list off the benefits it brings them, both spiritually and emotionally,” she said.

“You come to understand that it is a vocation,” she stated. “It’s what you’re called to do, or else you wouldn’t have been led in that direction.”

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