Halloween Fun Slated for Special Students

About 65 special-education students and their families will be treated to Halloween fun, including a haunted house, Wednesday at a party to be given by school staff and local high school students.

The event, for severely handicapped children 3 to 14 years old who are students in the Garden Grove Unified School District, will be held at Mendenhall Special Education School at 13581 Clinton St. It will include a “Spiderweb Theater” with spooky films, a room with a “witch” telling ghost stories, and such activities as bobbing for apples.

Mendenhall teacher Melinda Culwell said many of the students would otherwise be “unable to go out (on) Halloween night due to their disabilities, and this is to give them a Halloween happening of their own. The children really enjoy it, as do the teachers. It’s a good time for all of us to let our hair down and have a good time.”

Culwell said the party is an educational event as well because the trick-or-treating aspect of the event requires that the students use their knowledge of numbers and the alphabet to find where the candy is being handed out.

School staff and 30 leadership and honor students from nearby Santiago High School have volunteered to decorate Mendenhall and will hand out candy to the costumed trick-or-treaters during the event, from 6:30 to 8 p.m.