Orlando Charter Schools Buck Trend For Students With Disabilities

John O’Connor / StateImpact Florida

Most facilities at UCP’s Bailes campus are designed to be accessible for students with disabilities, including this playground.Charter schools are supposed to give students an alternative to their neighborhood schools.

As our investigation found earlier this month, most charter schools in Florida serve no severely-disabled students.

But during our research, we found one county where charter schools were serving LOTS of kids with disabilities: Orange County in the Orlando area.

UCP (formerly United Cerebral Palsy of Central Florida) runs several schools where the philosophy is students with and without disabilities learn more together.

How do they do it when other charter schools say they can’t afford to serve kids with severe disabilities?

You can hear more from the parents, teachers and other supporters of UCP in the audio story below.

To read the full online version of this story, click here.