RACINE - Julie Maurer hopes to see a day when parents of children with special needs, parents like her, don't have to advocate for their children in public school

Maurer hopes the system changes and schools accept children, like her daughter, Jenny, as easily as children who will never carry a label like "learning disabled" or "emotionally disabled."

Maurer's daughter, now 20, attends the University of Wisconsin-Parkside after graduating from Racine Unified.

A small group of parents, educators and disability advocates spent a few hours Saturday at the United Way of Racine County, 2000 Domanik Drive, with University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee education professor Elise Frattura, clearing up the confusion of including special education students in regular education classrooms.

Those years, from elementary school through high school, were marked by Maurer's struggles to get her daughter into regular classrooms instead of being isolated from the rest of the children her age.

A preschool teacher encouraged Maurer to read the federal special education law, so as to understand what she should expect her daughter to receive in school.

That helped Maurer demand more for her daughter, who has a mild physical disability as well as a "nonverbal learning disability."

"I wanted her to be with her age-appropriate peers," Maurer said.

Once her daughter was included in regular education classrooms, Maurer said she noticed her daughter's health improve. It's also part of the reason her daughter was able to complete school and enroll in college, Maurer believes.

It's called "inclusion" in the world of special education. It goes by other names, and not only is it the preferred method of professionals and experts in the special education field, it is the law.

It is something Racine Unified hadn't been doing when Frattura evaluated the district's special education program.

Frattura released her report on the state of Unified's special education program in November. The report painted an unflattering picture of a program which Frattura, and others, said had fallen decades behind.

In her report, Frattura discovered that 80 percent of Unified students with disabilities were segregated from their peers who did not have disabilities.

In the United States, 50 percent of students with disabilities are segregated all or most of the day.

Frattura also found that 30 percent of students with disabilities did not attend the school they would attend if not disabled, which she called "alarming."

Unified's program wasn't meeting the needs of its special education students. The district, and others throughout the country, have not faced the real problem of the education system and how it is set up to fail children with special needs, she said.

"We constantly place children in schools based on their category, not on their needs. We write IEPs (individualized education programs) based on what we have to offer, not on what the child needs," Frattura said Saturday. "We can't continue to build an expensive reactionary model."

This conversation in Racine isn't new for local disability advocates. Saturday's event was organized by the ARC of Racine.

"Over the years, we've tried to stress inclusion and the idea that children with special needs are best served in groups that aren't just special education students," ARC Executive Director Sandy Engel said Saturday. "We weren't surprised by the report. This is the first time the (school) board said they wanted to make changes."

Special education law governs what school districts in this country are supposed to provide to children with special needs.

It is voluminous, and often a parent's only recourse is to become well-versed in the language of special education law, as Maurer did. It can be exhausting.

In the wake of the November report, Unified staff and administrators started working on several recommendations Frattura made, including the creation of several groups, comprised of teachers, parents and local advocates, that will help overhaul the district's special education program.

Shortly before the release of Frattura's report, the district hired retired area superintendent Ann Laing to serve as interim special education director as the district works to revamp the program and incorporate current practices throughout the district.

Anne Swanson, principal of Giese Elementary School, sits on one of the district committees that is looking at inclusion in the schools. She said the district is moving in the right direction.

"Since the release of the report, under the leadership of Ann Laing, the district has made a committed effort to try to remedy some of the concerns raised in the report," Swanson said. "There is a sincere effort to create models that will address the letter of the law.

"It's a long time coming. It's going to take some time to change."