After-School Program for Handicapped OKd

A proposed after-school care program for severely handicapped students won initial approval Tuesday from Glendale school officials, who heralded it as a breakthrough for parents.

The program, the first of its kind in Glendale, will provide free care and innovative recreational instruction weekday afternoons for up to 24 mentally and physically impaired students from Glendale, Burbank and La Crescenta.

Designed by the Easter Seal Society, the program could serve as a model to be duplicated nationwide, officials of the nonprofit organization said. Easter Seal already is considering creating a similar program in Orange County.

“It’s going to make a big difference in the children’s and parents’ lives,” said Mary Anne Dan, supervisor at College View School, a specialized facility for handicapped students that will house the program. “It’s virtually impossible to find quality, affordable after-school care. And these kids have had few recreational opportunities.”

The state still must agree to fund and license the program as a day-care service. But Easter Seal officials, who said informal approval and funds already have been given, consider those measures largely procedural.

The service is expected to be in operation no later than May, said Carlene Holden, Easter Seal’s vice president of program service in Los Angeles County.

The after-school care proposal was praised by parents of College View students, who had struggled unsuccessfully for almost three years to establish such a service at the school.

Many parents have been unable to afford expensive, specialized aides or find day-care centers capable of providing proper care and have had to forgo working in the afternoons to look after their handicapped children, Dan said.

“They really are at the cutting edge of something that’s been a long-time need,” said Don Eells, a La Crescenta training specialist whose handicapped son attends College View. “Something like this gives parents many more opportunities to lead a more normal life. Obviously it’s very difficult to hold a regular job.”

But one handicapped services specialist cautioned that the program should be viewed only as a stepping stone to a better solution--after-school care that would integrate normal and handicapped students.

“We’re supporting the after-school program because right now there’s a great need for it. But it’s not the ideal situation,” said Sam Suzuki, program manager for school-age children’s services at Lanterman Regional Center, a nonprofit agency contracted by the state that will allocate the money for the program.

“Handicapped children are really best served when they are integrated with non-handicapped services,” Suzuki said. “That’s a direction we’ll eventually go.”

But Board of Education members didn’t hesitate Tuesday to embrace the program by agreeing to lease two classrooms at College View School for its operation. “It’s a real breakthrough,” one board member told Emmy Pennington, the district’s director of special education, after she presented the proposal.

The program won quick approval from the board in part because it requires no school district funding, officials acknowledged. In fact, the district will receive about $20 a day for leasing the classrooms.

Easter Seal and College View will hire and supervise at least four instructors and aides and may seek donations for student scholarships. But teachers’ salaries, rent for the classrooms and students’ costs largely will be paid by the state, Holden said.

Holden would not disclose how much the program is expected to cost. But Dan said a proposed budget requests about $9.35 an hour per student.

The program will emphasize recreation and interaction and provide therapeutic, specially designed toys for students that can be borrowed by parents for use at home, Holden said. It also will offer computerized work stations with adaptive equipment and programs that also can be borrowed.

“We are not talking about a baby-sitting program,” Holden said. “We are talking about having a professionally staffed program with a lot of special features that are normally difficult to find. We’re considering this a model program.”

Severely handicapped students, who attend either regular or special schools during the day, will be bused to College View and cared for from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., when their parents will pick them up, she said.

About 2,800 students with various degrees of handicaps are enrolled in special education programs throughout Glendale, Burbank and La Crescenta, which operate a consortium to provide services for them, according to Pennington. About 100 severely handicapped students attend College View.

Although the program initially will be limited to 24 students, Dan said, immediate demand is not expected to be overwhelming because many handicapped students live in permanent care facilities outside their homes.