As a graduate student in special education at Pennsylvania’s Clarion University in the early 1970s, Kate Bayer spent nine months teaching school-age children at Polk State Center, an institution for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Venango County.
Her assignment to Polk Center followed the 1972 Pennsylvania judicial decree which guaranteed–for the first time–the “Right to Education” for children with disabilities.
At Polk, Kate witnessed treatment she considered inhumane. Committed to making sure that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities were treated with dignity and respect, Kate went on to work in a community-based disability services agency for 28 years. She began as a direct care professional and retired as Director of Development and Marketing.
Kate’s account of teaching at Polk State Center, her observations about the treatment of residents, and her life-long commitment to people with disabilities is part of Western Pennsylvania history. Kate, a long-time resident of the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, passed away in March 2021 at the age of 70.
