Boyle most recently served as Director of the Andrew M. Greeley Center for Catholic Education at Loyola University Chicago, and as the Assistant Director of the University's Center for Catholic School Effectiveness.
In a 2016 document for the NCEA, Boyle enumerates the layers of support a Catholic school system can provide in order to foster effective inclusive education across all its schools.
Most of the legwork in educating students with special needs is done by the teachers, so at the classroom level teachers need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills key to working with students with disabilities, and be inspired with the right dispositions toward those students.
"At the classroom level, how are we supporting teachers in terms of building the skills, the competencies and the dispositions to be able to really kind of approach that?" he said.
At the level of the school, Boyle wrote that school leaders need to equip themselves with knowledge and skills related to special education, develop policies and protocols for teachers to follow, and also should be prepared to model for teachers the disposition that serving those with disabilities "brings to life our obligations under Catholic Social Teaching."
Finally, at the diocesan level, the bishop should be prepared to offer support and sharing of resources so that every school can offer a high level of inclusive education, Boyle wrote.
"We can't just do an inclusionary approach on a class by class basis, we also have to look at the school's system," he added.
As Joliet's new superintendent, Boyle's work will include a focus on big-picture, system-wide approaches to expanding special education in the Catholic school system- giving schools the leadership and training they need in order that "all kids who want to avail themselves of a Catholic education, can."
Boyle said it would be ideal if every diocese hired someone to manage their special education programs.
"As we all know the challenges- especially as we're coming back now from COVID-19- the economic challenges facing schools are going to be critical. And most dioceses, quite frankly, are not going to be in a position to be able to do that. So I think what we have to do is we have to think about ways to maximize resources," he said.
"I think where people have a hard time is that when everything gets dumped on one person...and so building all the members of the school community to be able to do this kind of work is really critical."
For those dioceses not in a position to hire someone new to oversee special education, he suggested a certificate program he helped to create, which aims to help educators learn how to build an inclusive school.
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At the diocesan level, Boyle said the bishops of several dioceses across the country have worked to prioritize special education in recent years.
He pointed to the dioceses of Arlington, Virginia and Phoenix, Arizona, whose bishops have made inclusive education a priority for their schools.
His goal, he said, is to ensure that the excellent, inclusive practices of many Catholic schools across the country are replicated throughout each diocese.
"My concern always is that we might get a school that does a really great job, but it becomes a lighthouse school- it's the only school that does inclusion. When in reality, we're all, as Catholics, called to do this is a part of who we are as Catholics," he said.
"We just don't want to just include to include, we also want it to be an excellent education because that's what a Catholic education should be, right? It should be academically excellent and identifiably Catholic."
The National Catholic Educational Association recently warned that at least 100 Catholic elementary and high schools across the United States will not reopen for the fall semester, with many suffering from low enrollment and decreased donations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.