(a) The grantee or delegate agency outreach
and recruitment activities must incorporate specific actions to actively
locate and recruit children with disabilities.
(b) A grantee must insure that staff engaged in recruitment and enrollment of
children are knowledgable about the provisions of 45 CFR part 84,
Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Handicap in Programs and Activities Receiving
or Benefiting from Federal Financial Assistance, and of the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990, (42 U.S.C. 12101).
(c) A grantee must not deny placement on the basis of a disability or its
severity to any child when:
(1) The parents wish to enroll the child,
(2) The child meets the
Head Start age and income eligibility criteria,
(3) Head Start is an
appropriate placement according to the child's IEP, and
(4) The program
has space to enroll more children, even though the program has made ten
percent of its enrollment opportunities available to children with
disabilities. In that case children who have a disability and non-disabled
children would compete for the available enrollment
opportunities.
(d) The grantee must access resources and plan for placement options, such as
dual placement, use of resource staff and training so that a child with a
disability for whom Head Start is an appropriate placement according to the IEP
is not denied enrollment because of:
(1) Staff attitudes and/or apprehensions;
(2) Inaccessibility of
facilities;
(3) Need to access additional resources to serve a specific
child;
(4) Unfamiliarity with a disabling condition or special
equipment, such as a prosthesis; and
(5) Need for personalized special
services such as feeding, suctioning, and assistance with toileting, including
catheterization, diapering, and toilet training.
(e) The same policies governing Head Start program eligibility for other
children, such as priority for those most in need of the services, apply to
children with disabilities. Grantees also must take the following factors into
account when planning enrollment procedures:
(1) The number of children with disabilities in the Head Start service area
including types of disabilities and their severity;
(2) The services
and resources provided by other agencies; and
(3) State laws regarding
immunization of preschool children. Grantees must observe applicable State
laws which usually require that children entering State preschool programs
complete immunizations prior to or within thirty days after entering to reduce
the spread of communicable diseases.
(f) The recruitment effort of a Head Start grantee must include recruiting
children who have severe disabilities, including children who have been
previously identified as having disabilities.
