MISSION VIEJO : New School to Mix Able, Disabled

For the first time in the Capistrano Unified School District, handicapped and able-bodied children will attend school together when the new Phillip J. Reilly Elementary School opens in Mission Viejo Sept. 6.

The school, a joint project of the school district and the Orange County Department of Education, will house 600 able students from the Capistrano district and 50 handicapped students from Capistrano, Saddleback Valley and Laguna Beach unified school districts.

The district’s only other special education school, the R.H. Dana Exceptional Needs Facility, is next door to the regular R.H. Dana Elementary School--the closest the district has come to housing disabled and non-disabled students together, said Jacqueline Cerra, district spokeswoman.

But educators now say the key to special schools is in having regular students take part in the same activities as disabled students.

“At most schools, handicapped students are on one side and non-disabled students are on the other side,” said Larry Belkin, director of special schools for the county.

But when disabled students are given the chance to interact with other students, the result is almost always positive, Belkin said.

“They seem to be more challenged in what they can do for themselves. They model themselves after their non-disabled peers,” Belkin said, adding that regular students learn to overcome prejudice against the mentally and physically disabled early in life.

“They learn about a whole group of people that in the past have been sheltered and they find that (the disabled) are capable of doing many things that they didn’t realize.”

The $6.6-million state-funded facility is under construction at the corner of Jeronimo and Pavion, adjacent to Pavion Park, which was designed to accommodate handicapped children, Belkin said.

Builders are installing carpeting and last-minute electrical wiring to prepare classrooms for the first day of school, but playgrounds and administrative offices will be completed later, Cerra said.

The school will include specially equipped classrooms, computer labs, and a mock apartment used to teach handicapped children how to perform tasks in a typical home.