Tempe Elementary to move special-ed preschoolers

Starting this fall, Getz School in Tempe, a preschool for children with special needs, must move some of its 260 students to other classes in the Tempe Elementary School District.

For years, the school placed four "typical" preschoolers into each classroom of roughly 13 preschoolers with special needs, such as social or speech delays. The typical students - children who don't have special needs - serve as peer models.

But soon, that's going to have to change, said principal Jane Rupard.

Starting this fall, the school will place roughly a dozen of its new special-education students at other Tempe Elementary preschools.

It's part of a push by federal and state officials to place special-education children in "least-restrictive environments," which, for some students, means being mainstreamed in preschool classrooms with children who do not have special needs.

Federal law requires school districts to provide free special-education services for children who qualify between the ages of 3 and 5, so all school districts offer some form of special-needs preschool.

Rupard said the government has promoted such placements for a long time, but this year, the state audited the district's special-education program, which brought the issue to the forefront of officials' minds.

Ideally, Rupard said, state and federal officials want such preschools to have an even number of special-education students and peer models.

"The state is saying they want to see our programs moving towards about a 50 percent integration, so we've been looking at our programs," said David Shuff, assistant superintendent of student services in the Mesa Unified School District. "We try to integrate as much as we can, because it's really helpful for the preschool kids who have special needs to be around 'typicals' because they learn from each other."

The state's goal was to have 50 percent of preschool children in classes with typical peers by 2006. However, it was a "target," not a "mandate," said Colette Chapman, deputy associate superintendent of exceptional student services for the Arizona Department of Education. She added the state still wants schools to work toward that goal.

Rupard said she'd be happy to make the changes at Getz, but doesn't have the classroom space or funding to get to the 50-50 ratio, since that would require a huge increase in the number of students who don't have disabilities.

Teams of parents, teachers and other specialists will consider the situations of children who qualify for Getz. If a child lives near a school that offers mainstream preschool, he or she may be placed there.

The Chandler Unified School District would like to mix its special-education students and typical preschoolers more, too - if it had the resources, said Maria Messenger, the district's early childhood specialist.

Preschools in Chandler currently have four typical children in each class of 18 students, and there are roughly 370 special-needs preschoolers in the district.