HUNTINGTON BEACH : Disabled Students Celebrate With Prom

Severely disabled students at Gill Special Education Center dressed up this week in flapper dresses or black shirts and white ties of the Roaring ‘20s era and went to the junior and senior prom to celebrate the end of summer classes.

“They deserve what everybody else gets,” said Peggy Bosselman, an instructor assistant. “They get dressed up and feel beautiful and it gives them dignity.”

Thursday’s prom at the school auditorium appears destined to be the next to the last one for the school, which had 63 pupils this summer.

The Westminster School District, which owns the school site, declared Gill surplus property and put it up for sale in April. And the county Department of Education, which has leased the school to house the special-education center since 1976, has been told it will have to move at the end of the next school year in September.

Larry Belkin, director of special education for the county Department of Education, said the Gill youngsters will be moved to an elementary school and a middle school in the Westminster district when Gill closes.

County school officials are negotiating with the Huntington Beach Union High School District for a campus for the disabled high school students, he said.

Gill Principal Janis B. White said her students have been affected by birth defects, traumas, diseases and accidents and are among the most severely disabled to attend school in the county.

A nurse and health assistant are on campus throughout the day to help the children.

White said the prom and other social activities throughout the year are important to the children’s sense of well-being.

“When you get to know them, you realize they understand more than you think,” she said. “A blink of an eye or a nod of the head mean something.

“I am very, very proud. It is their one chance to see what a real prom is like.”

Also participating in the festivities, which included music, dancing, punch, cookies and visits by relatives, were 15 students who attend transition programs at Golden West and Orange Coast colleges. The students do a variety of jobs on campus while becoming accustomed to being around mainstream students.

The goal is to eventually perform jobs outside school with the assistance of Harvey L. Barrows, a special education teacher at Golden West College.