School Board Member Fights for the Disabled : Elaine McKearn, mother of a girl with Down’s syndrome, advocates allowing handicapped children into the educational mainstream.

Thousand Oaks school board member Elaine McKearn is at gymnastics practice, and words are tumbling out of her mouth.

A dozen children, including her 10-year-old daughter, Heather, are bouncing on big blue mats nearby, flinging their nimble bodies left and right in cartwheels and flips.

But McKearn’s attention is focused elsewhere.

A small group of parents who, like her, have struggled to find better educational opportunities for their disabled children in Ventura County schools gather in a corner to vent their frustrations. It is a Wednesday night ritual, and tonight McKearn is asking questions.

“You’re from what district? And your child’s disability is autism?” McKearn asks a mother before launching into a discussion of special-education programs.

For three years, the homemaker and former teacher has hauled Heather and her friends down the Conejo Grade to attend a Ventura gym class for both disabled and non-disabled children.

“I enjoy coming to watch them and getting to talk to the other parents,” McKearn said, casually pacing the gym floor in black sneakers, cotton pants and a white Special Olympics sweat shirt. “It’s another form of therapy.”

Newly elected to the Conejo Valley Unified School District board, McKearn is a signal of hope for parents of disabled children.

She is a 52-year-old mother of five, including a daughter with Down’s syndrome, and the only elected school official in Ventura County who has a disabled child fully included in a regular classroom this year.

Perhaps more important, she has confronted the school district bureaucracy that has stymied some parents trying to place their disabled children in regular classes.

“Elaine has been there,” said Barbara Foster, whose 8-year-old son, Brian, has Down’s syndrome. “Elaine has lived it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year.”

Madonna Bowlay, a Thousand Oaks parent and president of the Ventura County Down’s Syndrome Assn., agreed.

“To have Elaine run was a blessing,” she said. “I think it will be a benefit for the school district and for the parents who are struggling.”

McKearn handily bested nine other candidates in an election last fall in which the top three finishers took office. She captured more than 15% of the vote, 1,700 more than the second-place finisher, incumbent Trustee Richard Newman.

During the campaign, she pushed for more parent involvement and said the board needed a trustee who had children in the schools. Heather painted her mother’s hand-made campaign signs and sat in the front row in a key debate. But McKearn did not make special education a focus of her campaign.

She is a strong advocate of full inclusion, the placement of disabled children in general-education classes. Inclusion has been embraced by parents and some educators as the most effective learning environment for disabled children because they learn from non-disabled peers.

About 72 disabled children from kindergarten through eighth grade spent their full school days in mainstream classrooms last year, according to a county survey. Officials expect the number to grow to about 100 students this year.

As the inclusion trend picks up steam in Ventura County, parents and disabled-rights activists are turning to McKearn to lead the charge in her own district.

They hope she will use her position as an elected official to improve opportunities for disabled children and help eliminate the segregation of special-education students.

At a board meeting this month, McKearn gave a strong indication of doing just that when she criticized a plan to send all disabled summer-school students to Conejo Elementary School, while non-disabled students would attend other campuses.

“We seem to be taking all those who are severely handicapped to Conejo,” she said. “We are segregating. I don’t approve of that.”

On Thursday, the board reluctantly agreed to restructure summer-school programs to include disabled and non-disabled students on the same campuses. But some trustees questioned whether the change was necessary.

“The fact that these students are in the same place but not the same classroom makes this acceptable, is that the idea?” Trustee Mildred Lynch said. “What would this do?”

Explained Supt. Jerry C. Gross: “They would have more opportunity for interaction”--a goal parents of disabled children have been seeking for years.

“A lot of educators still don’t understand what this issue is all about,” said Bowlay of the county Down’s syndrome group. “We just want our children to have the same opportunities.”

Though her outburst directly resulted in reorganizing summer school, McKearn plays down her role as an instigator of change. “I think I’m kind of a mouse on the board,” she said. “But maybe a few words is enough.”

For four years, McKearn struggled to find the best placement for her daughter in Conejo Valley schools. As a 6-year-old, Heather endured an hour’s bus ride to Meadows Elementary, where district officials sent her for special-education classes, McKearn said.

Frustrated with that scenario, McKearn pulled Heather out of Meadows and enrolled her in a preschool program at Hollow Hills School. Next she tried to enroll Heather in kindergarten and a mainstreaming program at Aspen Elementary, but officials said she had to move--the family lived outside Aspen’s enrollment zone.

Finally, McKearn gave up trying to find the best special-education program and simply enrolled Heather in a regular first-grade class at Madrona--her neighborhood elementary school.

“They weren’t too pleased with that,” she said. “I just thought special-education class was not stimulating enough for her.”

Madrona officials eventually agreed to fully include Heather in first grade, and she returned to a regular second-grade classroom there this year. She leaves class only for speech therapy.

Her disability has held Heather back academically, but McKearn says she has benefited from the social interaction. Last week, 17 classmates came to a birthday party for Heather.

“My whole thing is that these are people too,” she said. “We all have special gifts that God has given us, and we are all going to develop differently.

“Heather has Down’s syndrome. But she tries harder than many children who were born with no disabilities.”

From her experience, McKearn has been able to gauge the district’s progress in providing special-education services, particularly in regard to inclusion.

“I think they are trying,” she said. “I think they are just a little slow.”

McKearn said she is not entirely comfortable in her new position on the board and is still trying to find her place among the four other members, all retired educators. How strongly she will push for change in special education remains to be seen.

“It’s been a real balance beam for me,” she said, glancing at the old gym equipment. “I don’t think I’ve been real vocal. I’ve just physically shown the way.”