October 12, 1986

A new development for weekenders, vacationers and permanent residents is taking shape on 78 acres in Dutchess County, N.Y., about a two-hour drive from New York City. The project had been initiated in the mid-1970's when a New York developer bought the wooded, mountaintop tract to set up a homeowners' association.

THE growing number of poor minority students in the county's public schools soon will pose added problems for Westchester's economy, members of a newly formed coalition of education groups warned last week. But the educators' calls for help in solving such problems as teen-age pregnancy, illiteracy and a lack of job skills did not receive an enthusiastic response from at least one spokesman for the Westchester business community. Noting that he did not see any ''quick fixes'' to the problems, S. J. Schulman, president of the Westchester County Association, said: ''It's unreasonable to think that the business community, which is so preoccupied with annual reports, is going to provide leadership'' in providing solutions. The Westchester County Association is a private organization representing many of the major corporations and businesses in Westchester.

Before he became the State Department spokesman nearly two years ago, Bernard Kalb had spent 38 years in the news business. He had a good reputation as a correspondent for The New York Times, CBS and NBC, working in in New York, Washington, Southeast Asia and many other places.

The City Planning Commission says the artistic, rapidly gentrifying piece of the Lower East Side known as the East Village runs from Houston Street north to 14th Street between Fourth Avenue and Avenue A. But the border may be stretching to the east. A new renovation between Avenues C and D will offer five cooperative units that are airy loft spaces with split levels and many refined touches, from marble slabs on the stairs to sleek kitchen cabinetry.

A TECHNIQUE being studied here may enable some mentally retarded people previously thought incapable of functioning outside a sheltered workshop or day program to hold nonsubsidized jobs. Although some retarded people can transfer to the workplace skills learned in training, those who function at lower levels generally cannot. In the last few years, success has been reported with ''transitional employment,'' in which ''job coaches'' train someone at the job site and work along with him or her until the necessary skills are mastered. The Monmouth unit of the national Association for Retarded Citizens is one of eight groups in the country participating in a federally financed project to ascertain if mentally retarded recipients of aid under the Social Security Administration's Supplemental Security Income program can benefit from transitional employment. Although the technique seems promising, Dr. Jane L. Ross, director of the Social Security Administration's Office of Research and Statistics, said: ''The S.S.I. mentally retarded population is very severely retarded, so even people who have done work before on transitional employment have usually worked with higher functioning mentally retarded individuals than with this group.