Site to Serve Pupils With Special Needs

The Las Virgenes Unified School District plans to open a preschool next month for children with speech problems, developmental delays or other special needs.

After years without a permanent building for preschool special-education students, the district is finishing construction on a new modular structure on Russell Ranch Road in Westlake Village, said Carla Soronen, the district’s administrative assistant for special education.

Buttercup Preschool is scheduled to open Sept. 16. The building will house four classrooms and an office area and will serve about 80 children.

Soronen said the facility has twice as much space as was available previously in temporary classrooms behind A.E. Wright Middle School. With the added room, the school will be able to offer smaller classes and provide spaces in each classroom for neighborhood children who do not have special needs.

“They will be integrated into the same classrooms,” Soronen said. “What I anticipate is six children with special needs and four without special needs” in the same class.

Buttercup Preschool will have three classroom teachers, two speech and language specialists, an occupational therapist and several other specialists. The school, which accepts children ages 3 to 5, already has a long waiting list, Soronen said.