SANTA ANA : Integration Sought for Disabled Students

To improve the education of disabled students, the Santa Ana Unified School District should find more ways to integrate these pupils with their non-disabled peers, says a district task force.

Composed of 27 teachers, parents, staff and administrators, the Least Restrictive Environment Task Force last week presented to the board its recommendations, which include suggestions for reorganizing several schools during the next three years to improve “the mainstreaming” or integration of disabled students into the general student population.

Under the committee’s proposal, Mitchell Trainable Mentally Retarded School would become a child-care center serving disabled and non-disabled students between the ages of 18 months and 5 years. Carl Harvey Orthopedically Handicapped School would be converted to a regular elementary school, also serving both groups of students, from kindergarten to fifth grade. Other intermediate and high school classrooms at Mitchell and Harvey would be relocated to Carr Intermediate, Valley High and other schools. These changes would take place by September, 1993.

In addition, Taft Hearing Impaired and Taft Elementary schools would be merged at a single site by September, 1994, and the new school would be reconfigured to integrate hearing-impaired and other students in the same classrooms.