A Comparison of Program Locations and Opportunities for Public School Students with Severe Handicaps

Abstract

The present study provided information on the types of special education program locations for public school students with severe handicaps. In addition, the study sought to determine if differences in the proximity to regular education placement had any impact on integrating programmatic offerings for this population.

A modified version of the Severely Handicapped Integration Checklist (Stainback & Stainback, 1985) was sent to 55 district teachers of the severely handicapped in West Virginia's public schools. Of the 39 returned, 33% indicated placements in segregated schools, 33% were located in separate | secluded sites associated with regular education facilities, and 33% were within common site locations to regular education classes. Of the 33% in common site locations, only 25% were located in age-appropriate facilities.

One way analyses of variance were conducted on the six questionnaire categories. Pairwise comparisons for program location yielded significant differences between the common site locations and both of the other more remote placement locations. In fact, the separate | secluded sites were similar to the segregated school locations on all but one category analysis.

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