The Education for All Handicapped Act and Special Care in Public Schools

• In 1975, the U.S. Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Act (EHA), which established, for the first time, that all schools had to accept funds from the federal government for the special care of disabled children. This formed separate classes and programs within public schools. The act was updated with the 1990s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which deepened the scope of the care offered, specifically in cases of early intervention.
  
  

Bancroft, Haddonfield, New Jersey

• Bancroft is a special needs school serving handicapped children and adults. Aside from providing an array of special education for all learning levels, Bancroft helps individuals become part of the larger outside community. Specific vocational training is offered, as well as support for finding a job and successfully working at a job. Specialists at Bancroft work closely with behavioral issues and do extensive in-home work with patients. Although the school is headquartered in the small town of Haddonfield, New Jersey, it has several smaller branches throughout the Delaware Valley.
  
  

Special Needs Schools of Gwinnett, Lawrenceville, Georgia

• The Special Needs Schools of Gwinnett serve handicapped children from kindergarten through 12th grade. They divide care between four primary age categories---toddlers, preschoolers, primary schoolers, and middle and high schoolers. Gwinnett is unique in that it designs classes to so that children experience the same things that normal youth do in public schools. People with varying handicaps and levels of disability are in the same classes together, and it is the Gwinnett philosophy that these distinctly different individuals teach other virtues and values. Classes are not predesigned, but are tailored to individual students.
  
  

Special Care, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

• Oklahoma City's Special Care, Inc., is a United Way Foundation partner agency, offering educational and living assistance to individuals ages 6 to 21. Special Care's funding allows it to offer what many special care schools cannot---year-round care for all enrolled children. Another distinct feature of Special Care is its before- and after-school program, which exposes children from other schools to a new social environment. The school also boasts an autistic behavioral education lab, which specializes in disorders related to autism.