The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia

Sister Georgine School Principal Sister Barbara Furst encourages student Eric Miranda. This kind of confidence-building is a part of every lesson at this very special school where students with cognitive disabilities learn to be their best selves.

At St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, New Jersey, a group of young people are beaming as they

survey the rows of clean cafeteria tables they have just finished wiping down. In the kitchen, two young women show off their plating skills on the dessert line while down the hall, one young man proudly displays a pile of neatly folded linens he has been working on in the laundry.

All these hard workers are students at Sister Georgine School, a private day school for children and young adults with moderate cognitive disabilities. Although the students are seventeen to twenty-one years old, these unpaid internships are the first job experiences they have had—providing valuable encounters in the world of work and helping students make the transition from school to jobs.

“Our young people started out at St. Francis by just wiping down the cafeteria tables,” said Lois Dwyer, who serves as work program coordinator and job coach at Sister Georgine School. “Once the students became comfortable with that, I got the O.K. for them to branch out into the kitchen, and then the linen room. “It’s wonderful to have people outside the school setting see what these kids can do.”

In addition to the unpaid positions at St. Francis, some of the students at Sister Georgine School work for pay at the Association for Retarded Citizens Sheltered Workshop. There they become proficient at a variety of office tasks including stuffing envelopes, collating papers, labeling products, and packaging supplies. Although developing skills, building self-esteem, and bolstering employability are the primary goals of the experience, students also receive a much-appreciated paycheck.

“Earning money for themselves is a real source of pride for our students,” said Lois. “I had one young man who couldn’t wait to tell me that he was going to the movies with a friend and that his paycheck was paying for the excursion. Getting paid helps them to understand that they are contributing something worthwhile.”

Learning to Work

Staff members at Sister Georgine School started the job-coaching program four years ago when they realized they had to take another step forward in preparing students for life after graduation. “Our students were successful here at school but we knew it was important that both the students themselves and the rest of the workforce learned that they could be successful in a different setting as well,” explained Principal Sister of St. Francis Barbara Furst, who has been directing the school for the past twenty-eight years.

Toward that end, Lois spends an entire year getting students ready for their out-of-school work experiences. One tool she uses is role playing, which enables the young men and women in her class to practice everything from what they should do if they feel sick at work, to how to buy lunch in the cafeteria, to how to interact with supervisors and fellow employees. Such skills are difficult but essential tools for students to master in order to be successful.

“Most supervisors tell us that people with special needs usually are let go not because of their work skills, but because they do not have proper social skills,” said Lois. “The Director of the Sheltered Workshop has told me what a difference there is between our students and students from other schools. Our students adapt more quickly and are able to get along better with others.”

Getting the job done right is important as well, of course, and Lois makes sure that students are ready to take on the duties assigned to them. When students arrive at a new site, Lois goes through an extensive orientation to help them become familiar and comfortable with the surroundings and the routine. Once students are ready to start working, Lois demonstrates the job several times, then works with the students, and finally sits back and supervises while the students do it themselves. When someone has trouble with a task on site, Lois reviews that element when they return to school. “Some are a little tentative at first but they all end up really looking forward to going to work,” said Lois. “It has become a rite of passage.”

Back in the Classroom

In many ways, the employment experiences are a capstone to the intense education students receive in the classroom. This year the school, which was founded in 1969 by the late Sister of St. Francis Georgine Wohnhaas, serves seventeen students ages five to twenty-one. Small class sizes—three classrooms are broken down by age and ability—mean that students get incredibly individualized attention.

Helen Kelly, whose twenty-year-old daughter Taj has attended Sister Georgine School since she was six, can’t say enough about the high level of care and education students receive there. “Taj loves her school and so do I,” said Helen. “The teachers get to know each student and they really prepare them so well and in so many ways.”

Lessons at Sister Georgine School provide instruction in a number of different areas. A communications program works on speech and sign language. A functional academic curriculum teaches students skills such as properly identifying signs, telling time, and working with money. A series of lessons that foster independence focuses on things like buttoning and zippering, tying shoes, washing clothes, folding, vacuuming, and setting the table. A moral character program helps make students good citizens—covering everything from sharing to showing kindness to others.

Even skills like learning to deal with change require specific, tailored lessons in order to teach and reinforce them. More so than typical children, the students at Sister Georgine School crave routine. Teachers purposely change the schedule at school from time to time to get students used to altering their daily patterns. One major task for students is learning that lunchtime doesn’t have to be at exactly noon every day. Making the switch to 11:30 or 12:30 is extremely difficult for many students but the exercise helps prepare them for situations in which they might have to be more flexible than they would like.

“There are things that seem so basic that our students really struggle with,” said Sister Barbara. “Time is a difficult concept, for example, and so is money. If you teach our students that five pennies equals five cents, it can be almost impossible to get them to understand that a nickel is also five cents.”

To help them practice counting and money skills, students spend time in a makeshift “store” filled with empty boxes with their prices boldly displayed. Students practice giving the right amount of play money for the items they select. When they are ready, a field trip to a local store allows students to put their skills into practice in the real world.

“We work hard to make students independent,” said Sister Barbara. “Accomplishments that are so minimal for most people are great milestones for our students. One little girl, Helen, was so pleased and amazed the day she actually was able to cut something with her scissors that her face just lit up with triumph. She had tried for weeks to achieve that one small task.”

Hands-on experiences are important for many of the students who find doing traditional pencil and paper exercises difficult and frustrating. One project that is a favorite for many students is working in the grow lab and garden at the school. There students plant flowers, vegetables, herbs, and vines. They tend the plants and watch them grow throughout the school year. “Most of the students love to get their hands dirty,” said Sister Barbara. “They find it very rewarding to find success in an activity that doesn’t necessarily involve answering questions.”

Although Sister Barbara hopes that some day the staff at Sister Georgine School may be able to knock on a garden shop door and find jobs for some of the students who enjoy and excel at gardening, she stresses that the sense of joy and accomplishment that students get from the activity is just as important as any tangible skills they may acquire. “We constantly work on self-confidence; we have to reinforce it every day,” said Sister Barbara. “The first thing many of our students say when they are confronted with a new task is ‘I can’t do it.’ We have to show them that they can. It’s all about getting them to be excited about school and about life.”

Because classes at Sister Georgine School are so small, teachers are able to zero in on individual learning styles. “We might teach a single topic but break it down four ways to help each student learn better,” said teacher Michele Symcak, whose class consists of four children between the ages of seven and twelve. Each of Michele’s students has his or her own reading group and Michele incorporates games, puppets, and other interactive activities into the curriculum to help engage each child.

“Every student needs something a little bit different and we try to give them all what they need to become their best selves,” said Sister Barbara. “That’s part of what makes Sister Georgine School so special.”

Principal Sister Barbara Furst shares a special moment with student Amirah Jackson. “The children here are very giving, very loving,” said Sister Barbara. “They love and appreciate everything we do with them.”

Graduation and beyond

Never content with the status quo, staff members at Sister Georgine School are continually fine-tuning the program their students receive. Whether it’s tailoring a lesson to make it accessible to every student, finding additional job placements where students can hone their skills and prove their competency, or simply adding new activities to keep the program fresh, the focus at Sister Georgine School is always on possibilities rather than limitations.

“We stress that all our students have the potential to excel at something,” said Sister Barbara. “Our goal is to prepare each student with the skills he or she needs to succeed beyond these walls and the confidence to feel good about what he or she is doing. When our students leave here, they are ready for what lies ahead.”

Remembering Sister Georgine

The spirit of Sister Georgine Wohnhaas, the Sister of St. Francis who started the school that now bears her name, is alive and well at Sister Georgine School.

Sister Georgine first became involved in special education when the Bishop of Trenton, New Jersey asked four congregations to send sisters for training in how to teach religious education to children with profound educational disabilities. In 1965, after several summers of instruction, Sister Georgine began a specially designed religious education class that met at Immaculate Conception Grammar School on Saturday mornings. The response exceeded anything Sister Georgine had imagined. Before long, parents of the students were clamoring for more, insisting that their children were learning more at the Saturday CCD classes than they were in an entire week of school.

Compelled by a love of the children and a strong belief that they were much more capable than most people believed, Sister Georgine resolved to open a school where these special children could flourish. “She was a real pioneer,” said Sister Barbara Furst who was teaching second grade at Immaculate Conception when Sister Georgine first began her classes. “At that time it was not thought that these individuals were able to learn or to interact in society. That didn’t stop Sister Georgine. She was determined to try every means she could think of until they did learn—both academically and socially.”

In 1969 the superintendent allowed Sister Georgine to start a class for four mentally challenged students in one of the rooms at Immaculate Conception. By 1971 the demand for spaces in the class was so overwhelming that Sister Georgine asked Sister Barbara to join her. Sister Barbara accepted and a second class was added, bringing the enrollment to twelve students.

Just one year later, however, Sister Georgine was diagnosed with leukemia. The sisters moved the school to a nearby convent so that Georgine could rest when she needed to but in the summer of 1974, Sister Georgine—only 38 years old at the time—lost her battle with the disease.

The following fall, Sister Barbara took over as director of the school. Since that day, she has striven to continue the program in the way she believes Sister Georgine would have wanted it. “This school was her dream and through it we are keeping her dream and her spirit alive,” said Sister Barbara. “Everything I’m doing I learned from her. She had a gift. She could teach any child. Every one of her students loved her and every one of them learned.”

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HOW YOU CAN HELP...

• Consider hiring disabled workers at your place of business. Check with local agencies that serve people with cognitive disabilities to find out whether placements are needed for their clients.
• Support state and national legislation designed to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. Many of those who would most benefit from such changes are unable to lobby for themselves.
• Volunteer your time at a local school or human service agency that works with the cognitively disabled. Such organizations are often understaffed and underfunded.
• Give to the ministry. Funds are needed at Sister Georgine School to provide intensive physical therapy for students and to help subsidize the free breakfast and lunch program. Sixty-five dollars is enough to provide a physical therapy session for one student and $4,000 would provide a year’s worth of meals for fifteen students. Make tax-deductible contributions online via our secure website.