LUBBOCK STATE SCHOOL. Lubbock State School, which opened in 1969, serves the mentally retarded from a fifty-two-county area in the Panhandle and South Plains of Texas. The school, located in Lubbock, has special treatment programs including speech therapy and language development classes for all clients, an extensive recreational program, and a work program on campus for approximately 182 clients. By the early 1970s the school was able to accommodate over 600 students. From the beginning an outreach program was designed and operated to delay or prevent institutionalization of persons evaluated by the school's Diagnostic and Evaluation Center. Out of the 234 persons evaluated in 1970, about 50 percent were spared or delayed institutionalization. Six local communities aid the school with the outreach programs in their communities. In the early 1970s the school had 660 students, and the superintendent was John W. Gladden. In 1993, when Lonnie H. Willis was superintendent, the students at Lubbock State School numbered 440. See also MENTAL HEALTH.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, Annual Report, Austin.