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Just the Facts: Collaborating with LEAs
 

Collaboration between the LEA and Head Start is crucial to disability services and a key element of disability service planning. This fact sheet provides disability coordinators with six statements regarding responsibility, parental rights, allocation of funds, Individual Education Programs (IEP), Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), and transition.

The following is an excerpt from Leading the Way: Disabilities Services and the Management Team.


Just the Facts: Collaborating with LEAs

  • When a child with a disability is enrolled in Head Start, the program and the local education agency (LEA) are each 100 percent responsible for working together to assure that she receives all needed services.

  • The Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a binding agreement which stipulates the strengths and needs of a child with disabilities and his family and protects their rights. It is only through the process of developing an IEP that the most appropriate educational setting and teaching methods are decided. A developmentally appropriate Head Start classroom is often a good choice for a child with a disability.

  • LEAs and Head Start should be prepared to enter partnerships for serving children with disabilities and their families, fully aware of the guidelines for allocation of funds they can contribute.

  • Head Start should collaborate with public schools to make sure they are ready to receive children (for kindergarten) with a wide range of abilities and needs.

  • A child's right to Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) can never be forfeited.

  • Only parents can decide if information from evaluations of their children should be shared outside of Head Start.

"Just the Facts: Collaborating with LEAs." Leading the Way: Disabilities Services and the Management Team. Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community.  HHS/ACF/ACYF/HSB. 1997. English.