County Teaching of Handicapped Falls Short, U.S. Charges : Education: Local officials agree to upgrade 10 ‘special centers.’ They also will send some students to regular schools.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education has violated federal law by isolating dozens of mentally handicapped students in special schools when they could have been educated on regular campuses, an investigation has found.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights also found that handicapped students at the special schools attended class for less time than regular students in nearby school districts, another violation of anti-discrimination laws.

The county Office of Education has agreed to correct the deficiencies at its so-called “special centers.”

“We’ve started implementing the (improvement) plan,” county spokesman Frank J. Tocco said.

Officials plan to re-screen many students who attend the special centers and reassign some to special education classes on regular campuses, Tocco said. They also agreed to lengthen the school day at special centers, when necessary, to equal the county average for regular schools, he said. The improvements are expected to be completed by September.

About 840 of the most severely handicapped students countywide attend the centers, officials said. They suffer from retardation, autism and other mental disorders. Many also have physical handicaps.

Complaints from Downey parents and activists triggered the investigation, which began last year. Research has found that handicapped students who attend classes on regular campuses benefit by making friends and learning social skills from their non-handicapped peers.

More than 50 school districts throughout the county send their most severely handicapped students to classes run by the county Office of Education.

The county operates 10 special centers and runs classes on the regular school campuses of the districts it serves. The county serves about 8,000 handicapped students.

Last year, the Office for Civil Rights found that some county-run classes at regular school sites also were deficient. In some cases, handicapped students attended school for less time than non-handicapped students. Investigators also found that some extracurricular activities for handicapped students were inadequate and that speech therapy and other services were not always provided.

The Office for Civil Rights also has found that 31 school districts in the county violated the law by failing to ensure that their handicapped students received an adequate education from the county. The county Office of Education and the school districts could lose federal funding if the problems are not corrected.

The county has begun to correct these deficiencies, Tocco said. Twenty to 30 minutes per day have been added to county classes at 30 regular campuses, he said.

Some districts, such as the Los Angeles Unified School District, do not contract with the county for classes for the handicapped and are not affected by the investigation.

Federal law requires that handicapped students receive an education that is as equal as possible to that of their non-handicapped peers.

In some instances, handicapped students may be kept apart from regular students and given shorter school days. That could happen if a child is especially frail and needs special medical care.

When investigators visited four of the county’s special centers last January, they discovered about 60 handicapped students who could have attended regular schools, said John E. Palomino, regional civil rights director for the Office for Civil Rights. Similar conditions exist at the other six special centers, he said.

Investigators also found that the school day at the centers was between 20 and 65 minutes shorter than the instructional day at regular schools.

County officials said that some handicapped students were at the centers because the county has been unable to obtain enough classroom space on regular campuses. County officials said they had set the length of the school day at the centers to satisfy state requirements, not to mirror what was being offered by area school districts.