TUSTIN : School Lets Disabled Into the Mainstream

The recent expansion of a public school here allows special education and non-handicapped students to learn side by side.

Officials from the Tustin Unified School District and the Orange County Department of Education marked the official opening of the Robert P. Heideman Elementary School on Thursday. During the last year, the school, which has operated in the district since 1969, was expanded in order to house regular students as well as those who are developmentally disabled.

The $3-million, state-funded project resulted in the addition of 12 classrooms--four of them for special education students--plus a multipurpose room and administrative offices.

“This school is designed with disabled students in mind, yet it is much like any other school,” said Linda Butterwick, Education Department special education principal at Heideman. “It creates an environment that makes everyone equal.”

Like similar facilities in Mission Viejo and Dana Point, Heideman is attempting to integrate regular students and those participating in the county program for the disabled. The only outward sign of the school’s mission is that there are no stairways and doorways are extra wide at the campus, brightly painted in blue and white.

“One of the big things is to mainstream (disabled students) as much as possible,” Principal Patricia James said. “Regular students will go into (disabled students’) classrooms . . . and they will read to them or play games with them,” she said.

Also, both groups of students will meet in the library, the lunch area or in the multipurpose room on a daily basis, she said. James added that in some cases a disabled student may be able to attend class with regular students.

Heideman has about 550 non-handicapped students and 32 disabled students. The disabled students, who come from Tustin, Orange, Santa Ana and Garden Grove, are bused to the campus by the county.