Local News in Brief : Parents, District Settle

The legal battle between parents of a severely handicapped 7-year-old girl and the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District has ended with an agreement that the girl, Stephanie Stratford, will remain in the school where she has attended a regular kindergarten class.

The district had argued that Stephanie, who is almost entirely paralyzed from the neck down and uses her chin to operate a motorized wheelchair, should be educated with other handicapped students in special classes. But her parents earlier won a state order placing her in the regular kindergarten classroom.

“We won, basically,” said Nancy Stratford, the girl’s mother. “We wanted Stephanie to attend a regular school, which she is.”

But Sharon Watt, attorney for the district, said both sides made concessions in the settlement, which was sealed by the court.

A state hearing officer in September ordered the district to place Stephanie in a regular kindergarten, but the district appealed and the Stratfords filed suit in federal court. The California Department of Education sided with the couple.

School officials say it costs between $30,000 and $40,000 to provide a full-time nurse-aide to attend to Stephanie in a regular classroom.