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EWING -- When Christopher, 14, was home-schooled, he didn't play. He wasn't happy.

Just five years later, Elizabeth Castillo, Christopher's mother, said her son, who has cerebral palsy and sclerosis, has improved his motor skills, and he's smiling and laughing all the time.

"They treat him well. ... He gets physical therapy, he's part of the family," Castillo said in Spanish, calling the teachers and staff at the state-run Regional School Mercer Campus "tremendous."

Yesterday, Castillo joined a handful of employees at the Mercer Campus site at 1600 Stuyvesant Ave. hoisting up signs -- with messages like "What Happened to No Child Left Behind!!!" and "Save Our School" -- protesting the closing of the school.

Since the 1970s, the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) has run several regional schools throughout New Jersey, serving students with physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities. Since 2002, the schools have incorporated other programs for at-risk youth and pregnant and parenting teens.

But now the state is looking to phase out the schools by next year and the decision has drawn the ire of employees and parents at the Mercer Campus, which serves 38 students and employs 23 full-time and seven part-time staff.

Protesters argued that the school is necessary to meet the needs of students who they said would not get the individualized attention in mainstream schools.

"They get individualized attention year-round," said Adam Bierman, a teacher working with teenage mothers at the Mercer Campus for close to five years. "This is like an oasis. It's calmer, more structured than the high schools they're coming from."

DCF's Office of Education provides intensive 12-month educational services and support to children and young adults ages 3 through 21, according to its website.

Citing a decline in enrollment at all 18 regional schools and the increased capacity of local school districts to service students with special needs in-house, DCF spokeswoman Kate Bernyk said the 560 students at all the regional schools will be transitioned out to local school districts by July 2010. Students from two satellite programs run out of hospitals will also transition to local school districts, Bernyk said.

"We're trying to do the transition as smoothly as possible. We're also working with lead districts and employment opportunities" for current regional-school staff, Bernyk said.

Bernyk said there are no set plans for Mercer, and no dates have been confirmed, though employees said a letter from the department stated the school would close on or about Sept. 1. She also said if employees at the regional schools find jobs in local school districts, their state pensions and health care would transfer. Those who are unable to find alternative employment would be laid off, she said.

As for students in Project TEACH -- which stands for Teen Education and Child Health -- they will also be looked at on a case-by-case basis, Bernyk said. School officials will identify why that student population was not served in the local school districts and create individualized needs assessments, including what kind of program would best serve that child. She also said the licensed child-care centers that are part of some regional schools helping teen parents could be taken over by local school districts or counties to keep them running.

It costs the state $10.5 million in fiscal year 2009 to run the 18 schools, said Tom Bell, a spokesman for the state Department of Treasury.

The state would save $4 million in fiscal year 2010 when the schools are phased out, Bell said.

But some are not convinced closing any of the regional schools, particularly the Mercer campus, is a good idea.

"I think that's a lie," Thomas Palermo, president of CWA Local 1039, said about local school districts being able to accommodate students with disabilities.

Palermo said some of the teachers who work for the state-run schools have as many as 23 years of service.

"School districts already said they don't have room for other teachers. ... These teachers are state teachers that really cover certain areas," said Palermo, whose union represents 300 teachers and support staff at five regional schools.