
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 7, 1995                   TAG: 9503070070
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAINSTREAMING IN MONTGOMERY

IN DECIDING last week that an autistic 9-year-old boy is entitled to attend Montgomery County schools, Circuit Court Judge Ray Grubbs appears to have ruled properly and objectively. Beyond the narrow and now-decided issue of legal residency, however, lie troubling questions that persist.

In January, Roxana Hartmann moved with her son from Loudoun County to Montgomery, which has an excellent reputation for "mainstreaming" disabled children in regular classrooms. Hartmann's husband and other child still reside in Loudoun, where the family had filed a well-publicized suit against educators' decision there to move the boy from a regular classroom to a special-education program. The Loudoun case is still pending.

One set of questions involves the initial attitude of Montgomery school officials. Was it necessary to go to court and thus interrupt the child's education? Would Montgomery school officials have questioned Hartmann's legal residency if she had moved to a one-bedroom apartment in the county and attempted to enroll a non-autistic child in the schools? Would her legal residency have been questioned had her husband and daughter also moved to Montgomery? Why should it make a difference?

And did the Hartmanns' suit in Loudoun figure into Montgomery officials' actions? It's easy to speculate that a show of solidarity with Loudoun officials might have crossed Montgomery officials' minds as appropriate. But, says Montgomery Superintendent Herman Bartlett, that's ``malarkey'' - and, absent evidence to the contrary, the school chief ought to be taken at his word.

A second set of questions involves the situation in which Montgomery finds itself. Though Virginia law requires school divisions to provide appropriate educations for disabled children, mainstreaming is not necessarily mandated. For parents like the Hartmanns who think their disabled children should be in regular classrooms (not all parents do), is mainstream-minded Montgomery becoming a magnet? If so, should Montgomery taxpayers subsidize the education of youngsters who in other jurisdictions have been deemed too disruptive to be taught in regular classrooms? Should schools in one district be forced to take in children whose parents, for whatever reason, don't like the schools in another district where they've been living and paying taxes?

The Hartmann case should prompt reasonable discussion not only about Montgomery's response if similar situations should arise in the future, but also about the interlocking responsibilities of all local school divisions in Virginia.

Meanwhile, don't stick Montgomery with the label of discriminator against handicapped children. After all, the boy's mother chose Montgomery specifically because of its nationally recognized work in integrating physically and mentally disabled youngsters into regular classrooms.

by CNB