Government's plan to bring children with mental and physical handicaps into the general school population came closer to reality this week.

But there is growing concern from parents who claim there is a lack of support services for special-needs children at regular schools.

Education Ministry officials broke the news to parents at meetings on Wednesday and last night that special schools Woodlands and Cedar Grove would be closed by June.

They are the first special schools since Friendship Vale to be closed.

The pupils will finish out their final term before being put into the mainstream in September, Education Minister the Hon. Clarence Terceira confirmed yesterday.

"We wanted to talk to the parents before going public,'' he said.

There were some who were upset about the decisions to close Woodlands in Pembroke and Cedar Grove in Southampton. However, most were happy with the move, he claimed.

"One parent was in tears not because she was against the shift but because it was a dream come true.'' However, another parent admitted yesterday that while mainstreaming of her child was "not as bad'' as she had thought, there was "a serious lack of support services'' at his new school, Somerset Primary.

But some of those services had been lacking even in the special schools, noted Mrs. Sherry Henderson, whose son was among half the population of Cedar Grove moved into the general school population last year.

The situation had been compounded by mainstreaming though, she said.

She and another parent, Mrs. Ellen Baxter, whose son is currently at Cedar Grove, had a list of support services they claimed were missing from regular schools.

They included: Failure to carry out recommended amounts of speech therapy; Placing special-needs children in year levels at regular schools that were not age-appropriate -- this was probably due to the classes at those levels being smaller; The provision of six teaching assistants -- to be spread throughout the primary schools where special-needs kids were placed -- was not enough; Psychological updates were taking far longer than the four to six weeks they were supposed to, and; Other recommendations concerning special-needs children were not being carried out.

Having said that, Mrs. Anderson, whose son left P2 at Cedar Grove and went into P3 at Somerset Pri mary, said: "On the whole it is working out okay. He is learning. It's not half as bad as I thought it would be.'' Dr. Terceira noted the two schools had not been accepting any new students since Government announced its intentions to put disabled children into the mainstream two years ago.

"It's not only in Bermuda that we are doing this. It's all over the world. I think New Hampshire and Maine just finished mainstreaming all their special-needs children,'' Dr. Terceira said.

"The original idea of special schools was to give special-needs children more attention. But in recent years research has shown the children have been so segregated they don't fit into society later on. Mainstreaming will enhance their future.'' Fears of teasing and humiliation at the hands of "normal'' kids had not come true, he said.

The Friendship Vale closure was a "great success story,'' he said.

"Children tease each other when they are not in that situation (having special needs). The regular students are fighting over who gets to help the ones in wheelchairs. The special-needs children have made new friends and they are able to socialise with the regular children.'' He said Education had added teaching assistants to primary schools to ensure the special-needs children attending them "were well-looked after.'' They would have separate classes, however, they would attend some classes with the other students.