(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.