BOND TO PAY FOR DISABLED STUDENTS' CLINIC : FACILITY WOULD SERVE SPECIAL EDUCATION IN PALMDALE, END BUSING TO LANCASTER.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

A $450,000 medical therapy clinic would be built for disabled students if Palmdale voters pass a school bond measure, officials said Wednesday.

Proposed for the future permanent campus of Buena Vista School, the 3,000-square-foot medical facility would eliminate the necessity of busing many special education students to a clinic in Lancaster.

``I think it needs to be here. They need a medical therapy unit,'' said Denise Witmeyer, 48, of Agua Dulce, who has three adopted children in the special education program run by Los Angeles County at Palmdale schools. ``The kids need more playgrounds and space. They have to have medical facilities.''

Palmdale School District officials, Los Angeles County officials and parents inspected the proposed site Wednesday, as well as the location at Tumbleweed School where 10 portable classrooms will be installed next fall to relieve crowding at Manzanita School's special-education unit.

Manzanita has a main building with four classrooms and three portable bungalows, which lack bathrooms and have little room for students' wheelchairs, county officials said.

``We are pressed for space. We're just in a situation right now where the population is growing, and it's quite overcrowded,'' said Tim McNulty, director of special education for the Los Angeles County Office of Education. ``The district recognizes that, and we are working together to take care of that situation.''

The county special education program serves about 900 students from Antelope Valley school districts. The Palmdale branch serves more than 400 students from the Palmdale, Keppel, Westside, Wilsona and Acton-Agua Dulce school districts.

The Buena Vista medical facility will be three times bigger than the small clinic now operating at Manzanita School, officials said. There is a second county medical facility located at Linda Verde School in Lancaster.

The two facilities provide services including speech, occupational and physical therapy.

``It will provide more space and better equipment, and a room for observation,'' said Martin Lieberman, the county special education principal based at Manzanita.

``Not having kids bused to Lancaster gives them time in class,'' said Palmdale School District Superintendent Nancy Smith. ``It keeps them in school where they can spend more time with teachers.''

The medical therapy unit would be built along with a new permanent campus for Buena Vista School, planned at 52nd Street E. and Avenue S-4.

The district hopes to pay for half of the cost with money from a $81 million school construction bond measure going before voters in a March 4 election. The state will pick up the other half.

If voters approve the measure, the school is scheduled to be built in three years.

The cost for installing the portable classrooms at Tumbleweed School will be paid by the state, whether or not the bond measure passes, officials said.