Up in Arms : Parents, Teachers Rally to Save UCLA School for Special Children

Parents, students and teachers at UCLA’s Fernald School will gather today to protest the university’s decision to close the 65-year-old research center and school for children with learning problems.

The newly formed Friends of Fernald will call on its supporters at the rally to write to public and university officials including Chancellor Charles E. Young to ask that the school remain open.

UCLA officials said they are closing Fernald on June 30 so that its operating funds can be diverted to other university research on learning disabilities, and because similar programs are available elsewhere.

The duplication of programs, however, is disputed by parents and a state consultant who believe that Fernald is unique in its dual role of research and training.

The closure will affect about 75 full-time students, including many whose neurological or emotional impairments make them unable to attend public school, said Howard Adelman, Ph.D., the school’s director for 13 years.

Layoff notices were sent to 12 full-time staff members and 50 part-time tutors, officials said.

Adelman said that closure of the school will be a great loss because Fernald provides learning-handicapped children with the rare opportunity to attend school in a research facility where innovative educational techniques are being developed and tested.

Fernald is one of about 50 state-approved schools in the Los Angeles area that serve learning-handicapped children who cannot attend regular public schools, according to the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Adelman said that Fernald is the only one of these special schools statewide that operates as part of a major research and teacher-training laboratory. Educational theories developed at Fernald are disseminated nationwide to improve education for students with learning handicaps, he said.

About 1,300 Los Angeles-area children attend the 50 state-certified schools, which receive funds from the public school districts to pay for the students’ education, said Eugene Ferkich, a special education coordinator for the Los Angeles school district.

These youngsters are evaluated annually to decide whether they should return to the mainstream or stay in the special schools, Ferkich said. At the end of the school year, Fernald’s students will be evaluated as part of the mainstreaming process, and those who still need special care will be assigned to schools according to their individual needs, their age and place of residence, he said.

Amy Harrison, a state Department of Education consultant who has evaluated more than 120 schools for state certification in special education, said the closure of Fernald will be “a tremendous loss.”

Fernald’s creative and sometimes unorthodox approaches, including an art therapy program, are not duplicated elsewhere among the special education programs she has studied, she said.

At Fernald, she said, “they try unusual, out-of-the-ordinary things that do wonders with these kids.”

School Has a Hot Line

In addition to Fernald’s school for students ages 7 to 20, it offers tutoring for 90 students, an assessment and consultation program serving 250 families a year, and a community hot line used by 1,000 callers a year, Adelman said.

School officials and parents said they were shocked at the closure announcement which came in a Feb. 19 letter from John D. O’Connor, UCLA dean of life sciences.

Fernald administrators said they had heard that the school was being closed to make room July 1 for the UCLA Child Care Center, which itself is being displaced for construction of a new medical building on campus.

But university officials said that no decision has been made on relocating the child-care center, which provides day care for children of students, faculty and staff.

Decision Was Independent

O’Connor said that the decision to close Fernald was made “independently” of discussions on where to relocate the child-care facility.

He said Fernald is being closed because other schools offer the same services. Since Fernald was established in 1921, he said, “many schools dedicated to the instruction of the learning disabled have come into existence . . . (therefore) the community service offered by Fernald is available at a number of other locations.”

O’Connor said that research and teacher training will continue, although the school will be closed. About $100,000 in state funds previously used at Fernald will go to the psychology department for a “more intense and focused” program of research on childhood disabilities, he said.

Fernald officials defended their school and research programs which produced 68 published reports and research papers over the last decade, including two new books on learning disabilities.

They also pointed to Fernald’s other programs which currently include training for a postdoctoral fellow, more than 20 graduate students and about 300 undergraduates.

No Others Like It

Parent spokesman Michael Cornwell defended the school and said the university is mistaken in saying that comparable programs are available elsewhere. The research and training environment at Fernald provides innovative programs that are not available at other schools, he said.

“There are no other schools or facilities like Fernald,” he said. Tuition for an equivalent private school program would be about $10,000, he said.

Adelman said that about 50% of Fernald’s full-time students have learning problems so severe they cannot function well in public school. These children attend tuition-free through funds provided by the public school districts under the federal Education for Handicapped Children Act of 1977. For the other 50%, parents pay a tuition of about $4,000, Adelman said.

The school’s $600,000-a-year annual operating budget comes mostly from client fees with a small percentage from the university, he said.

The relatively small amount of university funds has limited the amount of research and training possible, and has made Fernald “vulnerable” to closure by a university that emphasizes research, Adelman said.

Supported by Client Fees

“For years, the university has been interested in expanding Fernald’s contribution to research and training,” he said in a letter to the faculty. “Unfortunately, the majority of the funds for operating the facility have had to come from extramural sources, particularly client fees, and this has limited the facility’s activities and made it vulnerable to the present action.”

Adelman said that the news of closure “was a shock to everyone,” including the psychology department under whose auspices Fernald operates.

A university advisory committee had discussed a gradual reorganization of Fernald over a two-year period to emphasize research, Adelman said in a memo to Chancellor Young, but the Fernald staff was caught by surprise by the announcement that the school will be closed in four months.

Parents are angry and sad about the “precipitous” decision to shut down Fernald at the end of the school year, said Cornwell, whose 15-year-old daughter is a student there.

“To say that this announcement has been met with profound concern is an understatement. For most staff, clients and their parents a more descriptive word would be grief,” Cornwell said in a letter to parents. He called on supporters to attend the meeting at the school at 2 p.m. today to help coordinate efforts to save the school.

Letters to Nancy Reagan

Letters are being sent to university and elected officials to protest the closure, and students have written letters to Nancy Reagan asking her to help save the school.

One parent said in a letter to Young that he felt the interests of Fernald students have been “totally ignored,” and that youngsters will suffer an emotional trauma by having to move to a new school.

Students in Laurie McElvogue’s classes at Fernald wrote to Mrs. Reagan last week asking for her help.

“The structure of teaching at Fernald is very different,” said one student. “The classes are smaller and each student receives individual help. I have been a lot more motivated to learn at Fernald than at any other school.”

“I came here (for help) with my reading, spelling and math problems,” said another student. “When I came here they were nice and warm. I learned much better because it felt like a family.”