Mary A. Castillo Sandy Martin has a...

Mary A. Castillo

Sandy Martin has a simple goal for her 7-year-old son, Alex.

Alex is one of 30 special education students who board a bus every

morning to a school outside the Laguna Beach School District.

Although Martin is pleased that her son’s needs are met at a

school in San Juan Capistrano, she hopes that her own home district

will expand its special day class program for fourth- and

fifth-graders with Down syndrome so that her son can attend school in

Laguna. The district offers classes at El Morro Elementary for first-

through third-graders, as well as classes at Thurston Middle School

and the high school for children with less severe needs.

“Ideally, a child should go to a local school,” Martin said. “Each

time they move around, they might lose friends and you don’t want to

move these little people around too much.”

The district budgets about $3.3 million annually to develop and

monitor the progress of comprehensive, individualized education

programs for each special education student; to pay the salaries of

special day class teachers, psychologists and speech therapists; to

provide “in-district” services such as speech and language programs,

adapted physical education, the Resource Specialist Program and the

special day classes at Top of the World, El Morro, Thurston Middle

and Laguna Beach High schools; and to send students in programs

outside the district, Laguna Beach School District Supt. Theresa Daem

said.

The necessity of placing students like Alex outside the district

is not unique to Laguna, and the decision is determined by student

population as well as economics, Daem and Mary Wuertz, director of

special education and students services, said.

“It should be noted that almost every school district, despite

their size, coordinates with another district or nonpublic school to

meet some students’ needs outside district boundaries,” Wuertz said.

“The vast majority of students are served in our district.”

Two hundred eighty-four students receive some level of special

education services; 253 attend schools in the district; and 31

students have needs that cannot be meet in district programs and are

placed within the South Orange County Special Education Local

Planning Area, an umbrella organization through which state funding

is dispersed between the district and the Saddleback Valley Unified

School District.

“We’re too little to have all of the programs,” Daem said of the

Laguna district. “Parents can get frustrated with us because they

would like to see more services. We are very frustrated because we

would love to do all things for all kids.”

The district sends out 23 special education students to programs

in the local planning area, seven in nonpublic day schools outside

the local planning area and two in a residential treatment center.

The district took a big step forward this year when it started a

special day class at El Morro for first- through third-graders. Eight

students are enrolled, said Christine Wagner, special education

teacher.

“The disabilities range from autism, health needs, learning

disabilities and speech delays,” she said. “We have a little bit of

everything in here.”

The special day class is an environment for students who not only

need extra attention, but must move at a slower pace than they could

in a regular classroom, Wagner said.

“We work on the goals of their [individualized education plans]

and have lots of hands-on activities and provide very individualized

attention,” she said.

Some of her students spend part of their day in her class for

science, social studies, music or art class.

Although pleased with the success of the program, Wuertz

maintained that discussions are underway to expand it to include

preschoolers and upper-elementary students.

“We need a sufficient number of children for a class,” she said.

“Children need the opportunity for interaction.”

Economics aside, the first challenge parents face is how to get

their children into the special education system.

“There’s a joke among us parents,” said Dennis Piszkiewicz, who

serves with Martin on the Community Advisory Committee for the South

Orange County Special Education Local Planning Area. “These kids

don’t come from the factory with an operator’s manual.”

Piszkiewicz’s 13-year-old son, whom he declined to name, was

diagnosed with autism at age 3.

“We went through a number of district schools, primarily

Capistrano Unified School District,” Piszkiewicz recalled. “In the

second grade, it finally became clear to everybody -- us, the

schools, the district -- that his needs were not being served by the

program he was in.”

Children younger than 3 are taken to the Regional Center of Orange

County, where they are tested and placed in an appropriate therapy

program, Piszkiewicz said. Once the child reaches age 5, parents need

to bring him or her to the district, where the special education team

members evaluate and then create an individualized educational plan.

“Team members meet together to determine what the present levels

of the child are, the goals and objectives and what kind of services

we need to provide,” Wuertz said.

Team members include Wuertz, psychologists and therapists.

Educational plans can be as simple as adding a few modifications to a

student’s regular curriculum or an intensive program that includes a

full-range of services, she said.

“We’re here to meet every child’s needs,” Wuertz said.

Although Piszkiewicz’s son’s needs can only be met at an intensive

speech and language development center in Buena Park, he hasn’t given

up his dream.

“I hope my son will attend and receive a diploma from Laguna Beach

High School,” he said. “I think with work and time, he’ll be capable

of it.”

* MARY A. CASTILLO is a news assistant for the Coastline Pilot.

She covers education, public safety and City Hall. She can be reached

at mary.castillo@latimes.com. Dennis Piszkiewicz is a Reel Critics

columnist for the Coastline Pilot.