Charter School Sought for Special Students

Through preschool, Delia Smith’s son mingled with other children and received the attention he needed for a disability that distorts his visual perception, making subjects such as mathematics difficult, and puts him at high risk of having a heart attack.

When 7-year-old Daniel entered first grade, Smith feared he would be placed in a special education bungalow isolated from other children in mainstream classes.

But Smith may have another option in September when Cal State Northridge and the CHIME Institute for Children With Special Needs plan to open a charter school for students with learning and physical disabilities. Students without disabilities will be allowed to attend the school. Each year, the school would add classes untilit reached eighth grade.

It would be one of just a few publicly funded schools of its type in Los Angeles, all of which have waiting lists, educators said.

“I went to half a dozen private schools and half a dozen public schools, and I was told politely, ‘We just don’t have anything for that kind of student,’ ” said Smith, whose son has Williams syndrome, a congenital disorder caused by a defective gene that affects brain and physical development.

Smith and a band of parents whose children attended CHIME’s infant program at Washington Mutual headquarters in Chatsworth and its preschool program on the Cal State Northridge campus began a campaign to open a publicly funded charter school. It would operate under rules set up in its charter rather than under the Los Angeles Unified School District’s administration.

Cal State Northridge’s administration has endorsed plans for the school, but the Los Angeles Unified school board must still approve the charter.

Smith plans to transfer Daniel and a daughter who attends the CHIME preschool to the charter school when it opens because of the staff’s experience. Co-directors Claire Cavallaro and Michele Haney wrote a 416-page guide in 1999 on preschool “inclusion” programs.

Cavallaro, chairman of Cal State Northridge’s department of special education and president of the CHIME Institute, said the new school will follow the model established by the preschool and the university’s acclaimed deaf studies program.

All the charter school’s teachers will be required to learn American Sign Language, and the curriculum will be molded to accommodate students with various types of disabilities, from speech impediments to autism.

Speech and physical therapists will be on staff to work one-on-one with students.

“Part of the key is that each child will have different goals and objectives,” Cavallaro said. “If a child’s disability is severe and he will never learn to read, his goals may be different than someone reading before kindergarten. He may be working on survival skills or just getting along with other students.”

The school would receive the same state funding per student as public schools, but planners are seeking about $500,000 in donations to train teachers and therapists and to buy special items, such as playground equipment designed for children with physical limitations, Cavallaro said. They also have started a campaign to raise $6 million to build a new school on or near the college campus.