SPECIAL ED EVOLVING; SCHOOLS TAILOR PROGRAMS FOR DISABLED.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

Frustration is having your daughter assessed as learning disabled by the same school district that two years earlier wanted to place her in a regular kindergarten classroom.

Satisfaction is remaining a strong advocate and doggedly gaining the learning-disabled diagnosis needed to enroll her in a program for special-needs children in the Simi Valley Unified School District.

``We went through a very frustrating process in the beginning,'' recalled Michelle Foster. ``You doubt yourself and think maybe you're being a paranoid parent.''

Michelle and her husband, Craig, suspected early on that their daughter had a problem and asked school officials to assess the girl. When the district said she would do just fine in a traditional kindergarten class, the Fosters enrolled their daughter in private school. There, lacking the support services available in public schools, the girl fell behind in kindergarten and first grade.

The Fosters sought another assessment from the Simi district and, at age 7, the girl was diagnosed as learning disabled and placed in a specialized program.

Now 9, she continues making steady gains at Township Elementary School in a program where first-, second- and third-graders learn math, reading and language at individual levels. She receives weekly handwriting therapy, twice-weekly speech and language therapy and participates in regular social studies and science classes twice a week.

``The reality is, it's really sad to find out you have a child with a disability. On the other hand, the more we know about what she needs, the more we can give her,'' Michelle Foster said. ``It's a challenge, but it's extremely rewarding at the same time.''

Special education programs in Ventura County - and across California - are being tailored in greater degrees for children with any of 13 eligible disabilities, ranging from the mentally retarded and deaf to the autistic and learning disabled.

Parent activism and teaching advances are two factors.

Recent federal laws mandating a greater emphasis on integrating special education students into regular classrooms and coordinating instruction between teachers are another.

``I think it has come as students' needs are more focused on more than they used to be, and it comes from special education kids being in regular classrooms longer,'' said Cathy Skiba, who for 19 years has been pupil services director for the Oak Park Unified School District. ``It's more difficult to run comprehensive and integrated programs, but it's better for the kids.''

Setting an example

An example of change is the development of elementary learning centers in the Conejo Valley Unified School District.

Students with mild to moderate disabilities who previously were bused to special day classes have been moved back to neighborhood schools. There, they are in special education for a half-day or more and in regular classrooms for art, music, physical education and academic subjects the learning center teacher can interpret.

Larry Goesch, a longtime parent advocate, was one of the leading supporters of the pilot learning center program that four years later has been expanded to all elementary campuses, including Wildwood, his 10-year-old daughter's neighborhood school.

``It's good for the special education kids because of the socialization and it's good for the (other) children because they recognize there are students out there with special needs,'' Goesch said.

His fourth-grade daughter receives math and reading instruction in the learning center, social studies and science in a regular classroom with help from an instructional aide, and therapy to improve handwriting and other fine-motor skills.

``In addition to being recognized by their peers, they're made to feel a part of the school setting,'' Goesch said. ``The regular education teacher's goal is to expose my daughter to as much of the regular curriculum as possible to allow her to feel part of the class.''

The first learning center program in the county, Conejo's has been replicated by the Ojai Unified School District and studied by the Moorpark and Ventura districts.

``The students feel better about themselves. They're not being singled out as being special day students who have to go on a little yellow bus to a school,'' explained Jack Bannon, the Conejo Valley district's associate director of special education.

Despite their efforts, the districts face challenges and complaints.

After the U.S. Department of Education determined three years ago that Conejo Valley routinely failed to assign instructional aides to work with autistic students in regular classrooms, the district had to beef up those services.

Since then, more autistic students have been integrated into regular classrooms with an instructional aide modifying assignments. The district also has social workers help regular and special education teachers and parents with emotional and social issues.

And when the state Department of Education completed its four-year Coordinated Compliance Review of Conejo Valley this year, the district didn't receive any noncompliance complaints for its special education programs. In fact, the district received five commendations.

``It's a matter of providing an individualized supportive environment for those who otherwise would be more isolated and have more problems fitting in,'' Bannon said.

Legal requirements

Federal law mandates that any child who meets special education criteria has access to a free and appropriate public education. For more than two decades, districts have been required to teach disabled students alongside nondisabled peers, and remove them from regular classes only when they can't be educated satisfactorily with instructional aides and other support services.

Programs have evolved from segregated to mainstreamed classrooms, where disabled students participate in some portion of general education. More recently, there has been momentum for fully including students with disabilities, educators said.

With last year's re-authorization of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, regular education teachers now must join the team of parents, administrators and special education teachers that decides a student's Individual Education Plan. Those teachers were frequently part of the process in the past, but the change requires greater coordination among instructors.

Such change will have a significant impact on Ventura County. With some 14,650 special education students and 750 teachers and specialists, the county is the third-largest Special Education Local Plan Area in California, behind the Los Angeles Unified School District and Riverside County.

Ventura County's SELPA, similar to others across the state, is an administrative and funding link with the state. It also monitors compliance, providing due process for parents and their children.

Covering the county's 20 school districts, and the Las Virgenes Unified School District in neighboring Los Angeles County, the SELPA ensures all students from birth through age 21 receive services, regardless of where they live.

For instance, Oak Park, Moorpark, Las Virgenes and Conejo Valley send all deaf and orthopedically impaired students to Simi Valley. Oak Park and Las Virgenes send their autistic students to Conejo Valley.

``It's the most effective and only way to guarantee that any kid in any district will have the most appropriate program for them,'' said Fran Arner-Costello, the SELPA coordinator. ``Somewhere in the SELPA, the program is offered and made available to them.''

For the most part, districts serve their own special education students. What is continually changing, educators say, is the level of individualized service.

Expanding program

A prime example is in Moorpark, the county's fastest-growing city, where the district has taken advantage of the burgeoning number of special education students to innovate programs.

Beginning with one special day class 20 years ago, when the district served only elementary students, the district has grown to serve 640 special education pupils from kindergarten through high school.

``We had to be really resourceful and creative,'' said Delores Allen, the district's special education coordinator. ``We wanted to serve our own students, we wanted them in neighborhood schools. Also, we have not been locked into tradition.''

Moorpark was the county's first district to hire its own occupational therapist - most districts contract with private agencies - who works with students on handwriting, posture, social interaction and related tasks.

Going further, Moorpark established a partnership with California Lutheran University, which places education majors in the district's inclusive classrooms. Allen said that was in response to general education teachers who aren't comfortable with and don't feel prepared for inclusion.

``We felt we needed to do something to change attitudes,'' she said. ``That way, they get experience early on so they're not afraid of it.''

General education teachers want to meet the needs of all students, and mainstreaming or full inclusion are increasingly important issues, said Susan Falk, a veteran secondary science teacher and president of the United Association of Conejo Teachers, the Conejo Valley district's bargaining unit.

``No situation is perfect,'' she said. ``When you have so many students in a class, it does make it more difficult when you have a special education student with more needs.''

Falk has taught special education students, though never one who required an instructional aide in class, and her experiences have been favorable.

Having joined in Individual Education Plan conferences for those students, Falk supports the new federal laws mandating that regular education teachers participate. ``Sometimes, setting up conferences with many teachers can be difficult. However, it is important that all of the people involved with the child give their input.''

The parents' views

Parents also differ on mainstreaming and full inclusion.

Diane Weis taught special education for 15 years and now is an educational consultant who also teaches at Pepperdine University and California Lutheran. That her 7-year-old daughter with Down's syndrome is fully included in first grade at Moorpark's Mountain Meadows Elementary School therefore isn't surprising, but Weis notes that's the appropriate placement - at least for now.

``Certainly her academic functioning in that classroom is below the other students,'' Weis said.

``What she has are age-appropriate models, her peers. When it's time to take out the reading book, she can watch and follow the other students. It's just like at home where she used her knife and fork and not her hands to eat her food just like her brother,'' Weis said.

Helping her are an instructional assistant each morning of the week, speech and language therapy twice weekly, and weekly occupational therapy for using pencils, scissors and other classroom supplies.

The teacher, Jeanne Ricci, was one of the first in Moorpark to have a full-inclusion class. ``The goal is to have them do as much as possible . . . to fit into the regular classroom as much as possible. I don't expect them to achieve at the same level. I'm looking for growth.''

``She has far outreached any expectation,'' Weis said. ``We have come a long way with inclusive education. We have a long way to go.''

Full inclusion hasn't been appropriate for Michelle Foster's daughter, but she likes the idea of having the girl going to regular classrooms for social studies and science twice weekly. Rather than always being a visitor, however, Foster would like the visiting to go both ways.

``If you can do it for the education of my daughter, why can't you do it for the education of everyone else?'' Foster said. ``I want to make sure that all children are equal. Just because they may look or learn differently doesn't mean they should be treated differently.''

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PHOTO (Color) Instructional assistant Elaine Beck assists K.D. Weis with her school work at Mountain Meadows Elementary School in Moorpark.

Evan Yee/Daily News