Calling all early childhood providers, educators and parents: your voice is needed! Help us shape a federal policy agenda focused on improving equity and inclusion for young children with disabilities and development delays across the birth-to-five early childhood system by sharing your experiences, perspectives, and ideas. Please complete our survey by March 18 and help us amplify our reach by sharing with your networks:https://bit.ly/3pd6uya
Tag Archives: Part B of IDEA
Policy and Advocacy Team: Call for Team Leader
One of the most powerful tools DEC has is the ability to use our collective voice to advocate for young children with disabilities and their families. To that end, the DEC Policy and Advocacy Team helps to develop DEC’s policy recommendations to ensure that proposed legislation, regulations, and documents from the US Departments of Education and Human Services increase opportunities for all young children including children with disabilities and their families.
The Policy and Advocacy Team functions as a necessary and significant arm of the DEC Executive Office, focusing DEC’s policy and advocacy efforts by working collaboratively with the DEC Executive Office Leadership, the DEC Governmental Relations Consultant, and the Children’s Action Network (CAN) Coordinator. Division for Early Childhoods Teams are officially recognized bodies of DEC members who are supported by the DEC Executive Office. Teams reflect the formal positions of the Division for Early Childhood and participate in developing, maintaining, and evolving strategies and initiatives that are critical and center to supporting DEC’s mission and beliefs.
CAN supports DEC’s mission by encouraging members to take action on legislation and issues that already have been endorsed by DEC/CEC or issues that DEC/CEC have already provided recommendations about. The Governmental Relations Consultant and the Executive Director develop and sustain relationships with national organizations, agencies, and governmental entities.
The Policy and Advocacy Team ensures DEC has a seat at the table with important stakeholders and will provide CAN with the tools needed to engage in effective advocacy. The Team also ensures a proactive stance in the drafting of policy and legislative recommendations and issue briefs; suggests updates to the DEC policy webpages as appropriate; supports the dissemination of policy and advocacy specific information; and assists in planning DEC policy and advocacy events and resources (including policy/advocacy specific actions at the annual national conference).
At this time, DEC is seeking a new Policy and Advocacy Team Leader to continue the important work of planning and supporting DEC policy and advocacy activities.
Source: Division of Early Childhood, Council for Exceptional Children
Assistance to States for the Education of Children With Disabilities; Preschool Grants for Children With Disabilities
12/19/2016
The Secretary amends the regulations under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) governing the Assistance to States for the Education of Children with Disabilities program and the Preschool Grants for Children with Disabilities program. With the goal of promoting equity under IDEA, the regulations will establish a standard methodology States must use to determine whether significant disproportionality based on race and ethnicity is occurring in the State and in its local educational agencies (LEAs); clarify that States must address significant disproportionality in the incidence, duration, and type of disciplinary actions, including suspensions and expulsions, using the same statutory remedies required to address significant disproportionality in the identification and placement of children with disabilities; clarify requirements for the review and revision of policies, practices, and procedures when significant disproportionality is found; and require that LEAs identify and address the factors contributing to significant disproportionality as part of comprehensive coordinated early intervening services (comprehensive CEIS) and allow these services for children from age 3 through grade 12, with and without disabilities.
Source: Federal Register
A Guide to the Implementation Process: Stages, Steps and Activities
March 2014
Improving child and family outcomes is a cornerstone of early childhood education and in particular the IDEA Part C and Part B, Section 619 Preschool programs. To improve outcomes, an evidence-based practice or innovation must be selected and the process of implementing that practice or innovation must be effective. Implementation science is the study of the processes needed to bring new practices into widespread use.
This guide is based on a review of the literature of implementation science Fixsen, Naoom, Blase, Friedman, & Wallace, 2005 and the collective experiences of federally funded national centers in conducting state-wide system change initiatives. These centers include the National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center NECTAC, now the ECTA Center, Technical Assistance Center on Social Emotional Intervention for Young Children TACSEI, Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning CSEFEL, National Implementation Research Network NIRN, and the State Implementation of Scaling-up Evidence-based Practices SISEP.
Source: FPG Child Development Institute
Available at: http://fpg.unc.edu/resources/guide-implementation-process-stages-steps-and-activities
IDEA and FERPA Confidentiality Provisions
6/2014
This side by side compares confidentiality requirements for Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part B of IDEA, and Family Education Rights Protections Act (FERPA). Sections address:
- Eligibility
- Definitions
- Confidentiality
- Consent
- Inspection and Review
- Retention of Records
- Procedural Safeguards
- Dispute Resolution
Source: U.S. Department of Education
Available at: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/ptac/pdf/idea-ferpa.pdf
DEC Recommended Practices Commission
3/2014
The DEC Recommended Practices Commission has drafted a set of revised practices which will continue to be available until the practices are disseminated in final form.
View and share the video of Parents and Practitioners speaking about this important resource. We have begun planning products for applying the Practices.
Source: DEC Recommended Practices Commission
Available at: http://www.decrecpractices.org/input.asp
Dispute Resolution Resource Showcase
The Resource Showcase captures critical aspects of state systems and catalogues their underlying resources. Users of the Resource Showcase will find:
- For each cell (the junction of a Continuum Process and a DR SIPE function), resources are available for download specific to that cell (e.g., “Training and Technical Assistance Resources” for the “Mediation” process).
- In densely populated cells, item groupings have been created to facilitate access to resources that match the user’s interests.
- For each Continuum process and each DR SIPE function, definitions that include features and elements related to effectiveness are available by clicking on the colored topic name.
- Filters are available in the upper left corner of the Resource Showcase that allow resources to be sorted by State, Part B/C, English/Spanish, and for newly posted items. The default sorting includes all states, both Part B and Part C, and all languages. Many Part B resources were developed to address both Part B and Part C dispute resolution processes in these states.
Descriptions of the Resource Showcase and how it works are no substitute for users experimenting with the application. CADRE welcomes feedback on the Resource Showcase and suggestions on ways that it can be improved. We appreciate recommendations of resources for inclusion that have proven useful to states and may benefit other states that are interested in improvement. Search on!
Source: National Center on Dispute Resolution in Special Education
Available at: http://www.directionservice.org/cadre/exemplar/matrix.cfm
Section 619 Profile, 18th Edition
The 2011 edition of this publication updates information provided by state coordinators on state policies, programs, and practices under the Preschool Grants Program (Section 619 of Part B) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Information includes: program administration, funding, interagency coordination, personnel, transition, monitoring, use of IEPs/ IFSPs, family-centered services, standards and outcomes, pre-kindergarten programs, initiatives for special populations, and services in least restrictive environments (LRE). The volume also includes a compilation of information on the Section 619 program from other sources: federal and state policies, a bibliography of selected online publications and journal articles related to the implementation of Section 619 published in 2010-2011, contact information for state and jurisdictional program coordinators, and program data from www.ideadata.org.
Source: National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center
Available at: http://www.nectac.org/~pdfs/pubs/sec619_2011.pdf
Early Childhood News Update 