An agreement approved yesterday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia will make it easier for Pennsylvania families with disabled children to mainstream their kids.

The settlement gives more power to the parents of disabled children and forces state officials to make sure school districts comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

"We've worked with parents whose children were systematically excluded from the regular education environment just because of their disabilities," said Barbara Ransom, a lawyer for the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, which represented the plaintiffs in the 11-year-old class action case.

"Discrimination is bad no matter who does it or who is affected. These children have been excluded because of the prejudices associated with being different."

The Public Interest Law Center represented a class of 280,000 special education students in a lawsuit with 12 named plaintiffs and 11 disabilities advocacy organizations. The plaintiffs claimed that the state's school-age students with physical, behavioral and development disabilities are not given enough time in regular classrooms and don't get appropriate instruction, with adjustments for their disabilities, to help them learn.

The settlement requires the state to set up a five-year monitoring system, along with a parent-dominated advisory board.

School districts will get be graded on how well they include disabled children in regular classrooms. Those with the worst records of including disabled students will be put on a monitoring list. The state will help failing districts improve and impose penalties on those who don't.

The most severe penalties include losing state funds and disciplinary action against school administrators.

"It should put school districts on notice that they've got to be more serious and work harder to include all children," said Marsha Blanco, CEO of Achieva, an South Side-based organization that advocates and provides services for people with mental retardation.

"The segregation and isolation of children in education will work against a child for the rest of their life in all of their life pursuits," Blanco said.

Under the federal IDEA law passed in 1974, state public schools are required to make sure disabled students spend as much time with nondisabled students as possible and receive as much academic instruction as possible. The law covers mental retardation, physical handicaps and autism.

The suit came about when the Carlisle Area School District in Cumberland County refused to allow the parents of Lydia Gaskin, who has Down syndrome, to place her in a regular kindergarten classroom.

Lydia Gaskin, now 21, graduated this year from high school in Carlisle, having completed almost all of her education in regular classes. The settlement agreement is mainly focused on making school districts comply with the federal law.

"We in the Pittsburgh Public Schools district have been doing this for years," said J. Kaye Cupples, executive director of support services for Pittsburgh Public Schools.

"As far as Gaskin is concerned, we in Pittsburgh Public Schools are already ahead of the curve as far as implementing whatever requirements come out from the settlement."

There are 7,000 school-age students in Pittsburgh Public Schools who are eligible for special education services, all of whom fall under the requirements of the Gaskin lawsuit. Pittsburgh's special education budget this year is $90 million.

The settlement comes as welcome news for Amy and Ray Guthrie, who want the best for their son, Ben, who has Down syndrome.

"We want him in the mainstream," Amy Guthrie said.

The Guthries recently packed up and moved to Pittsburgh so that Ben could attend school here in a regular classroom setting.

Administrators in his former school district thought Ben would be better off attending Sunrise School in Monroeville where all of the students are disabled in some way.

Carol DiNinno is fighting the same war.

Her 6-year-old son, Josh, also has Down syndrome, and like the Guthries, she wants him included in regular classes. She calls the Gaskin settlement a victory for common people.

"With this settlement, they'll see people like me aren't going to sit back and let them tell me my kid can't be involved with typical children and that he's marked because he has Down syndrome," she said.

DiNinno said school officials have been trying to shove her son, Josh, into the Sunrise School.

"That was their alternative," she said, "to send him to Sunrise so they don't have to deal with it. They are treating Josh like he's dirty laundry. My son should be interacting with typical peers his age."