Finding and Serving Children with Disabilities Placed by Their Parents at Private Schools

IDEA 2004 introduced new obligations to child find with regard to students with disabilities enrolled by their parents in private elementary and secondary schools:

• The obligation to serve students is based on their attendance area: the local public school district in which the private school is located is responsible for identifying, counting, and serving the students.
• The activities used to identify private school children with disabilities should be the same as those undertaken for the public school children and in the same time period.
• The cost of carrying out child find activities cannot be paid for from the proportionate share of funds; it is an administrative responsibility under the LEAs' administrative funding.

These changes are part of the provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (Act) (IDEA) and are in effect as of July 1, 2005.

Section 612(a)(10)(A)(i)(II) of the Act requires that the LEA, after timely and meaningful consultation with private school representatives, must conduct a thorough and complete child find process to determine the number of parentally placed children with disabilities attending private schools located in the LEA [emphasis added].

Because these are significant changes in policy, the Department issued a memorandum to all States on June 27, 2005, informing them of these changes. In addition, the Department has provided a question and answer resource to provide additional guidance to States regarding the responsibilities in serving parentally placed private school children with disabilities.

The final IDEA regulations will supersede current regulations, and any guidance that is provided in the guidance to the questions and answers that have been made available at this time.  Go to this site for the references and responses to questions:

http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/faq-parent-placed.doc