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Times Staff WriterPrograms for the 20,000 children with mental, emotional or physical disabilities include five exceptional education centers.
OVERVIEW: The Pinellas school district serves about 20,000 students with mental, emotional or physical disabilities. Parents with children who have special needs can send them to one of several schools in their attendance area or they can choose one of five special education centers.
SCHOOL-BASED PROGRAMS: Elementary children can choose part-time or full-time programs. Children who are emotionally handicapped, for example, can spend all of their time in a special education class, or they can divide their time between special and general education classes, depending on the level of services they need. Full-time programs at the elementary level are called varying exceptionalities classes. They serve students who are mildly mentally handicapped as well as those who are severely learning disabled. Most middle school and high school children are served in part-time varying exceptionalities classes, which have been distributed as evenly as possible throughout the district.
EXCEPTIONAL EDUCATION CENTERS: About 1,100 students have needs that cannot be met in regular education settings. These students attend one of the district's five special education centers.
Calvin Hunsinger School in Clearwater serves severely emotionally disturbed children, those with special speech and language needs, and those with occupational and physical therapy needs.
Hamilton Disston School in Gulfport serves emotionally disturbed and educable mentally handicapped children, those with specific learning disabilities or special needs in speech-language, vision, hearing and occupational or physical therapy.
Richard L. Sanders School in Pinellas Park serves children who are severely emotionally disturbed and those with speech-language impairments.
Nina Harris Exceptional Student Education Center in Pinellas Park serves the trainable mentally handicapped, profoundly mentally handicapped, autistic, visually impaired, the deaf and hard of hearing, and children with special needs in speech-language, dual sensory impairment and those who need occupational and physical therapy.
Paul B. Stephens Exceptional Center in Clearwater serves children who are trainable mentally handicapped, profoundly mentally handicapped and autistic, and those with speech-language, dual sensory, vision or hearing impairments.
ELIGIBILITY: It is a several-step process to evaluate a student for exceptional student education services. First, an evaluation referral must be completed by a parent or a teacher. Next, the district will decide what type of evaluation needs to occur and will secure the parent's informed, written consent to collect information about a student's learning needs, strengths and weaknesses. When the evaluation is complete, parents and teachers meet to determine whether the student meets the eligibility criteria for any of the exceptional student education programs. If a student meets eligibility criteria, an Individual Educational Plan is developed that identifies services to meet the unique needs of the student.
HOW TO APPLY TO A CHOICE ATTENDANCE AREA SCHOOL THAT SERVES CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS: Parents of children with special needs should report to a Family Education and Information Center. (Please see addresses and hours information, Page .) A customer service representative will assign the child to a school that has seats in his or her attendance area.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Visit the district's special student education Web site at www.pinellas.k12.fl.us/ESE/ or call 727 298-3309, ext. 1014.