EP LOOKS BACK: SEPTEMBER 2002

TWINS TRANSITION AND LEAVE BEHIND A CHANGED SCHOOL SYSTEM IN THEIR WAKE

By Laura Apel

Alba

and Anastasia Somoza will be two of the thousands of freshmen entering the college graduating class of 2006, but this achievement did not come easily for them, their family, or the New York City Board of Education.

The twin girls were both born with quadriplegia cere bral palsy, and because of this no one expected them even to earn a high school diploma. However, this past June the girls graduated as

honor roll students from Manhattan's "School of the Future." Now they head off to two of the country's top colleges: Alba to Queens College in New York City and Anastasia to Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

In a nationally televised town hall meeting that year, Anastasia Somoza appealed to then-president Bill Clinton as well as the New York City school system, asking that she, as well as her sister Alba (the more severely disabled of the two), be allowed to learn in regular classes.

Many parents of children with disabilities spend a great deal of

time considering the academic options for their children after high school. More and more parents and students are utilizing schools that are solely devoted to those with learning and physical disabilities, but many families neglect to consider the possibility that their children will be able to live and thrive at a regular four-year college or university.

Every situation is unique to a particular student and family, but Alba and Anastasia have proven that just because something appears to be beyond their capabilities does not meant that it truly is, but instead that it has simply not yet been tested. They have faced a challenge at each level of their academic lives so far and come away among the top students entering college this year, proving that they have deserved every success they have accumulated.

EP Magazine has already chronicled the Somoza family's many hardships and battles to receive proper treatment within the public school system and the medical community (May, 1996). Now, six years later, Alba and Anastasia have proven that it was worth the effort.

Alba and Anastasia's mother, Mary, began her battle with the New York City school system in 1993, asking for the inclusion of her daughters into the mainstream program at P.S. 234. In a nationally televised town hall meeting that year, Anastasia Somoza appealed to then-president Bill Clinton as well as the New York City school system, asking that she, as well as her sister Alba (the more severely dis abled of the two), be allowed to learn in regular classes.

The Somoza family succeeded in their quest and the girls were mainstreamed, making Alba the first significantly disabled student to be fully integrated into the New York City Public Schools. The