Head Starts—Special Education

The federal Department of Health & Human Services allocates Head Start Arizona Head Start grantees. The grantees may run programs and/or allocate monies to local Head Start program contractors. Exceptional Student Services recognize these programs as similar to other public special education programs operated within the state. Our unit aligns the naming convention and standard to what is recognized by the Office of Head Start and a listing can be found on the HHS website. Exceptional student services will be updating this page with a master list soon. For data reporting purposes, all children receiving services within these programs must be accurately reported at those sites with a public education agency listed as the district of residence.

Each public education agency (PEA) that places a student on an IEP in a Head Start program can submit a unique version of a calendar tailored to how its district/charter operates, and how the Head Start site operates. This will take into consideration unique fall/winter/spring break times scheduled by PEAs that can be recognized regardless of the operational days at the Head Start site.

Example: District A has a winter break between December 24, 2019, to January 2, 2020. In that district’s calendar submission for students attending a given Head Start site, out-of-session days such as this winter break can be specified for those students even if the Head Start site was open during that time. This is in deference to the PEA’s overall function and capacity as the PEA responsible for providing educational services.

Based on this guidance, PEAs should contact each Head Start site where it places students to obtain the standard operating calendar for accurate data submissions.

Additional information can be found on the general Head Start webpage for the department.