Countywide : Handicapped Integration Is School Meeting Topic

Educators, parents and various advocacy groups will address the Orange County Board of Education Feb. 13 on the issue of integrating severely handicapped students into regular public schools.

Larry Belkin, Orange County’s director of special schools and programs for the severely handicapped, said results of a countywide survey of more than 600 parents of handicapped students, in which the parents judged which educational programs work best, will be presented along with testimony from various groups at 7:30 p.m. at the Department of Education board room, 200 Kalmus Drive, Costa Mesa.

Belkin said that while the Board of Education is not scheduled to take action on the integration of handicapped students, the discussions could affect the board’s planning for the education of the severely handicapped children.

Belkin said a large turnout of parents and schools personnel is expected. Some are expected to urge uniform standards. One proposal calls for placing such students in regular public schools in numbers representing their proportion of the overall population, not to exceed 5% of enrollment in any school, Belkin said.

Advocates of such a policy oppose the current programs for the handicapped.

“You’ll have some students, basically, being educated at separate facilities that are designed specifically for very, very handicapped students,” Belkin said. “You’ll have others being educated side by side or next door to the regular education facility. You’ll have others where the program is part of, or right in the middle of, a regular elementary school campus.

“Then, depending on the individual student, you’ll have some who have very little interaction with their non-handicapped peers and others who are totally immersed with their non-handicapped peers.”