The National Reporting System and Head Start Children with Disabilities

To exclude children with disabilities from the NRS would reduce expectations and accountability for their progress.
by Jim O'Brien

THE HEAD START NATIONAL REPORTING SYSTEM (NRS) will be a focus of attention this year as your staff and families learn more about its purpose and procedures and how NRS data will contribute to the continuous improvement of Head Start programs. As the NRS is introduced, programs will need to understand how it will relate to other Head Start program activities designed to collect information on child progress, including those used in identifying and serving children with disabilities and their families. This article should stimulate discussion and planning within your Head Start program about what the NRS will mean for children with disabilities and their families and the importance of clear communication with Head Start staff, families, and com-munity partners.

     The NRS will inform local program managers and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) about the progress groups of Head Start children make in the year prior to kindergarten on the skills and knowledge important to early school success.

What About Existing Screening and Assessment Practices?
THE NRS WILL NOT REPLACE SCREENING or ongoing assessment required by the Program Performance Standards. Your screening approach remains the first step in a systematic approach to identifying children who may need further evaluation to determine whether they have disabilities (see Figure 1). Your ongoing assessment of children provides the depth and context for making instructional decisions for individual children and groups of children. (For more information on this subject, refer to "How Screening and Assessment Practices Support Quality Disabilities Services in Head Start," Head Start Bulletin, April 2001, No. 70. www.headstartinfo.org/publications/hsbulletin70/hsb70_07.htm)

     The NRS is not expected to generate a child's profile or progress records for planning instruction or interventions for individual children. Rather, the information generated by the NRS will be used to understand the progress of groups of Head Start children. It can be helpful in designing classroom and program level interventions to improve and sustain children's progress in certain areas just as the local outcomes process does in other areas. And, since children with disabilities are included in every Head Start program, a report on their progress should be included in the NRS results.

     The NRS is being designed and field-tested to assure that, to the greatest extent possible, it can record progress for every Head Start child in the year prior to kindergarten enrollment, including more than 10% of Head Start children who have a disability. The commitment to include children with disabilities in the NRS is consistent with the obligations of local education agency partners (LEAs) responsible for implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The Reauthorization of IDEA specifies that children with disabilities should be included in state and local efforts to measure educational outcomes for children. To exclude children with disabilities from these assessments would reduce expectations and accountability for their progress. Similarly in Head Start, efforts to report child progress include all children.

     It is important to remember that most Head Start children with disabilities participate in the same learning experiences as their peers, receiving any additional supports they need to address the objectives in their Individualized Education Program (IEP). Therefore, it is appropriate that the NRS assessments provide children with disabilities the opportunity to display the progress they make during their Head Start experience. Information about the progress of groups of children with disabilities will help us understand how we are preparing them for early school success.

     Some Head Start children with disabilities may, because of their disability, require appropriate modifications to participate in the NRS assessment. For example, a child with a vision impairment may need to use enlarged print materials to permit a valid assessment. Any such modification would follow guidelines provided by the NRS project. This attention to the standardized procedures helps assure that modifying the task does not significantly change the nature or difficulty of the item and that the measure of this child's progress is comparable to that reported for other children in the program.

     Finally, there may be a few Head Start children with more significant disabilities for whom some or all of the NRS battery could not be administered, even with appropriate modifications. An example might be a child with autism who has not yet developed the communication skills to complete the NRS assessment, even when appropriate modifications are provided such as more time for responses or frequent breaks. In such a case, where the NRS instrument would not permit a valid measure of progress, the NRS project will advise on an alternative means to record information on this child's progress. It is important to remember that for a child who may not complete the NRS assessment, their ongoing assessment, using methods appropriate to determine the child's progress on objectives contained in the IEP, will still be available to describe their progress.

     It is important to emphasize that the introduction of the NRS cannot reduce your program's commitment to recruit and enroll children who most need the Head Start program, including children with significant disabilities. It would be inappropriate for a Head Start program to avoid enrolling any child because of concerns about how well the child might perform on the NRS or on other assessments of progress conducted locally or nationally. The progress that Head Start children with disabilities make toward their IEP objectives— even if these accomplishments are not captured in the NRS measures— are important outcomes of their Head Start participation.

Communicate with Parents
THE ACTIVE AND INFORMED PARTICIPATION of parents in their child's Head Start experiences requires programs to thoroughly orient parents. This would include clear descriptions of the assessment, how NRS results will be reported and used, and the confidentiality and informed consent procedures that will be implemented. For parents of children with disabilities, this may require some additional attention to assure they fully understand how NRS procedures and results are distinct from the evaluations and progress reports associated with their child's IEP.

Communicate with Your Local Education Agency Partners
IN YOUR PROGRAM'S ONGOING COMMUNICATION with your local education agency partners, it would be helpful for your staff to introduce the NRS procedure and goals to the appropriate LEA personnel.

     This is an opportunity to clarify that the NRS will be used to provide information on the progress of groups of Head Start children and will not provide information on an individual child's progress. As described above, ongoing assessment results and the monitoring of progress on the IEP are the information sources for transition planning for individual children.

     Explore what your school partners may have underway to improve early reading instruction for preschool children. There is an increased expectation that early, evidence-based interventions can prevent many more instances of reading failure (Snow, Burns, & Griffin 1998). Improving children's early reading success can help more children escape a cycle of frustration, diminished motivation, and poor performance that often results in their being identified as needing special education in the primary grades.

REFERENCES

Snow, C. E., S. E. Burns, & P. Griffin, eds. 1998. Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, D. C.: National Academy Press. Also available at search.nap.edu/readingroom/books/reading/#sum

Jim O'Brien is Program Specialist, Health and Disabilities Branch, Head Start Bureau. T: 202-205-8646, E: jobrien@acf.hhs.gov.