Federal Resources

Resources on how to foster collaboration and implement best practices in school and special education settings.

The Department of Education released a Dear Colleague Letter to provide information to states and agencies about the importance of Braille instruction, clarify when these services should be provided to students, help school teams understand the evaluation required to guide decisions about services, and highlight available resources that can help personnel meet the needs of students who are blind or visually impaired (PDF, 6 pages).

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services within the Department of Education has released and updated its Disability Employment 101 guide. This guide provides information about hiring employees with disabilities, including information about how to find qualified workers with disabilities, how to put disability and employment research into practice, and how to model what other businesses have done to successfully integrate individuals with disabilities into the workforce.

Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools offers research-based practices designed to assist school communities identify these warning signs early and develop prevention, intervention and crisis response plans.

The Federal Resource Center for Special Education supports the work of the six OSEP-funded Regional Resource Centers (RRCs) that provide technical assistance (TA) to assist states in complying with IDEA and to implement evidence-based educational practices.

The IDEA Partnership reflects the collaborative work of more than 50 national organizations, technical assistance providers, and organizations and agencies at state and local level. Together with the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), the Partner Organizations form a community with the potential to transform the way we work and improve outcomes for students and youth with disabilities.

NCIP works to promote the effective use of technology to enhance educational outcomes for students with sensory, cognitive, physical and social/emotional disabilities.

The National Center on Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET) coordinates national resources, offers technical assistance, and disseminates information related to secondary education and transition for youth with disabilities in order to create opportunities for youth to achieve successful futures.

The AIM Center serves as a resource for stakeholders, including state- and district-level educators, parents, publishers, conversion houses, accessible media producers, and others interested in learning more about and implementing AIM and NIMAS.

The National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD) supports the national implementation of provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to provide successful school outcomes for students with disabilities. NDPC-SD supports states in assisting local education agencies to increase school completion rates and decrease dropout rates among students with disabilities.

Resources developed by the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities are now housed by the Center for Parent Information and Resources. 

The National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness (NCDB) is a national technical assistance and dissemination center for children and youth who are deaf-blind.

The Center assists SEAs to develop and implement rigorous and practical post-school outcome data systems to track the early adult experiences of youth who had IEPs while in high school. It also helps states collect, analyze, and use post-school outcome data to improve the quality of secondary and transition programs for youth with disabilities.

The National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC) helps states build capacity to support and improve transition planning, services, and outcomes for youth with disabilities and disseminates information and provides technical assistance on scientifically-based research practices with an emphasis on building and sustaining state-level infrastructures of support and district-level demonstrations of effective transition methods for youth with disabilities.

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) supports a comprehensive array of programs and projects authorized by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that improve results for infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities.

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) understands the many challenges still facing individuals with disabilities and their families. Therefore, OSERS is committed to improving results and outcomes for people with disabilities of all ages. OSERS supports programs that serve millions of children, youth and adults with disabilities.

The Technical Assistance ALLIANCE for Parent Centers National Center works with the six regional Parent Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs) to provide innovative technical assistance, up-to-date information and high-quality resources and materials to the parent centers.

This report (PDF, 122 pages) analyzes how states publicly report online assessment data for students with disabilities in K-12 schools in the United States, including English Language Learners (ELLs) with disabilities. 

MPTAC helps parent centers in their work supporting military families. The MPTAC website features tools and resources on topics such as TRICARE, permanent change of station, Department of Defense Educational Agency schools, and Medicaid. MPTAC also offers three dedicated staff members to support parent centers and a quarterly newsletter that includes information from parent centers and military subject matter experts.

This toolkit includes evidence- and research-based practices, tools, and resources that educators, families, facilities, and community agencies can use to better support and improve the long-term outcomes for youth with disabilities in juvenile correctional facilities. The toolkit focuses on four key areas identified as part of an OSEP-sponsored focus group series on juvenile corrections: facility-wide practices, educational practices, transition and re-entry practices, and community and interagency practices.