This story was written by Lia Salvatierra, our new Education Reporter. Find more of Lia’s reporting here. Do you have an NKY education story? Email lsalvatierra@linknky.com.
Light poured into the Mary Queen of Heaven preschool classroom where 4-year-old Noah Malone helped his friends clean up blocks and animal figurines.
The preschoolers circled up on the rainbow carpet to play a game. Instead of playing, Noah sometimes scooted away from the circle to hug his peers. But when he joined in with some help from his classroom aide, his peers all clapped.
The scene is the result of a choice Alisa Malone didn’t think she had for her son with down syndrome: the ability to become part of a Catholic school community.
Malone, a parent of three other Mary Queen of Heaven students, thought she was faced with a decision between public school or homeschool — long considered the best options for students with disabilities. But Principal Meg Piatt reached out to Malone first, knowing their family’s situation and wanting to find a way to make a faith-based education work.
It’s the first time the school has ever taken a child with down syndrome.
For decades, Diocese of Covington Catholic schools defaulted to turning away students with disabilities or special education needs, citing a lack of resources especially compared to public schools with dedicated state funding for those children.
“When you look at Scripture, Jesus says, ‘Let the children come to me,’ and we were saying, ‘No,’” said Diocese Superintendent Kendra McGuire.
But over the last few years, local Diocesan leadership and parent advocates have come together around opening up Catholic education for all students. It’s meant forming an inclusive education committee at the Diocese, hiring its first-ever inclusive education director in July and founding a parent-led nonprofit to raise money to support special education needs at local Catholic schools.
It’s marked by a shift in parents tired of hearing no, and leadership willing to say yes.
“As leaders we are ready to embrace what our Catholic and Christian values teach us to. Instead of saying ‘We aren’t able to do this,’ we’re saying ‘How can we do this?'” said Mary Queen of Heaven Principal Meg Piatt.
Push begins with parents
Years ago, Northern Kentucky resident Missy Hail found herself in a different position than Malone fighting to enroll her daughter with down syndrome in Catholic school, a priority for her family. Achieving her goal required conversations with school administrators, pastors and special education experts.
“(Those experts) kept telling me, ‘No, this is definitely something the Catholic school can do and should do,’” Hail said.
Her daughter finally enrolled in a Catholic school, but left for a public school when her Catholic school said they no longer had the resources to keep her. After an administration change, Hail’s daughter was able to re-enroll in another Catholic school for her middle school years. For high school, one Catholic school turned her away before another accepted her.
“I felt like I was one parent fighting the system,” Hail said.
Once her daughter was in high school, another parent approached her for help with the same issue. More parents started talking and eventually called a meeting with McGuire about how to break down barriers for all families in their position.
As a first step, McGuire connected the parent group with special education experts to form an inclusive education committee within the Diocese. According to Hail the Diocese had a version of that committee on and off since the 70s, but based on her own experience, it hadn’t achieved much.
“What they did or didn’t do, I don’t know. But obviously, people are still being turned away, so obviously we needed to do something different,” she said.
FIRE Foundation brings in financial support
Alongside establishing the inclusive education committee, Hail and other parent advocates sought a solution to one of the biggest barriers to inclusive education at Catholic schools: funding.
Unlike public schools, Catholic schools don’t receive dedicated funding to support special education for students with disabilities.
Often, that’s meant parents are told public schools are the better option for their children’s needs, according to Alex Bessler, a developmental interventionist on the Diocese’s inclusive education committee.
The advocate group then encountered the FIRE Foundation, a Kansas City-based nonprofit created to solve that gap by fundraising to support special education needs in Catholic schools. In November 2023, parent leaders successfully launched an affiliate nonprofit chapter, FIRE Foundation of Northern Kentucky to support the region’s needs.
So far, the local nonprofit’s fundraising has supported two key goals: offering grants for schools to support special education needs and funding to hire Inclusive Education Director Mike Jacks for two years.
Jacks, who began in his role this fall, has been an educator and administrator in Catholic schools for decades. In his later years as an educator he noticed an increased awareness in the variety of ways students learned, and wanted to be a part of this when the role opened up.
There’s a lot he wants to accomplish in this position, all of which is driven by standardizing how Diocesan schools treat special education needs, meaning all schools are understanding, have support for and want to have students with disabilities at their schools.
“I want it to be very clear that inclusion means all,” Jacks said.
Right now, Jacks is working on a handful of policy changes including a standard alternative learning plan for all Diocesan schools, the equivalent of individualized education plans at public schools, which function as as roadmap for a student’s special education needs.
Ideally, all Diocesan schools will soon at have at least one special education teacher on campus, he said.
In addition to funding Jacks’ position, FIRE Foundation opened up its first round of grants for schools in early 2026, and has successfully distributed $154,000 to six Diocesan schools. One of those grants supports a one-on-one aide for Malone’s son Noah, who also works with another student with autism at the campus’ middle school.
Another school received a grant to install a chair lift, because it lacked an elevator. Before that, teachers carried a student with cerebral palsy up and down the stairs.
Impact of a tide change
Each “yes” grows the impact and awareness of what inclusive education can look like at Catholic schools.
“The biggest change I’ve seen is that people are believing we can do it,” Bessler said.
For Malone, it means her son attends school with siblings who look out for him and peers who truly see him as a friend. They cheer when he shows up for school and invite him to their birthday parties.
The benefits also go both ways, as Noah’s peers learn about kindness and acceptance, Malone said.
“The inclusiveness, I mean everybody benefits from that,” she said.
