"... the positive quality of providing integrated services at the Head Start center, seemed to be… a much better way to serve children..."     The Bayfield School District/Family Forum /Redcliff Head Start Collaborative Team participated in a panel presentation for CESA 5 School Districts and other community agencies interested in exploring collaboration opportunities. This panel includes a parent, a special education director, an early childhood special education teacher and three Head Start teachers. Children with disabilities in the Bayfield School District are fully included and receive itinerant Early Childhood services, speech therapy, occupational and/or physical therapy services in the two Head Start programs. The Special Education staff serves as models and consultants to the Head Start teaching staff. The Bayfield/Family Forum/Redcliff Head Start inclusive partnership began in 1995 and continues to thrive today. How We Got Started             In the past… we, the school district, had provided what amounts to pull-out services to our Head Start children who had disabilities...the school would pick up the child, bring them to the school, provide the special intervention, and then the student would return. However, during a period of about five years, there were two children who had more complex needs, and whose disabilities were more involved. So, informally, the school began to collaborate and send our specialists... One of the things that happened was the Head Start teachers had an opportunity to observe the speech therapist, or the occupational therapist, and to consult with them about a particular child's needs.     Jeff Miller, Special Education Director, Bayfield School District                                 So, we began discussions then, with both Head Starts, and that evolved toward the grant proposal to the state for early childhood services. That was kind of the beginning, but it was out of that experience, that the positive quality of providing integrated services at the Head Start center, seemed to be… a much better way to serve children, than bringing them into the school, let's say, in a special needs-class setting.       Jeff Miller, Special Education Director, Bayfield School District                               The Head Start centers were an opportune place for us to have space and to look at how we could work with children in an inclusive setting. An agreement was reached between the two Head Start centers and the Bayfield district, and CESA 12s contracted services to provide that kind of a setting. We wrote a grant, as a start up grant, for an inclusive program, because at that time the discretionary funds were kind of aimed at looking at inclusive programming. We felt that was a good opportunity to start that kind of programming in the Bayfield district.       Joan Kewit, Special Education Director, CESA 12
	We said, Ok, let's try it. The district looked at it, the Family Forum Head Start looked at it, the Redcliff Tribal Head Start looked at it, (and) nobody was going to be writing out checks, or whatever. It was just kind of a commitment that you were going to try this, and then take a look a year later at it and assess it to see if you want a continuation of it. Nobody was in there with any kind of financial commitment. When we, the parents, Early Childhood teachers, specialists, O.T., Speech and Language, P.T, Head Start teachers… came together, and said, We need to continue this. To stop this now…would be going five years backwards, when we've come three years forward. We cannot do this. So, we went to the school board...     Linda Brown, Head Start teacher and Site Manager, Family Forum Head Start                               I worked under Linda when I first started, and was really excited about it… just having the specialists come in and learning so much from the specialists at the time. I think, how we got started, was getting support not only from the families, but from the school district, the school board. It's just really important to get as many people involved as you can, to support (you), because it's an excellent program...It's really exciting …to go in with an open mind, because sometimes those walls can be so high (that) you don't think you can break that down, but you've got to think of what's best for the children. I really believe the inclusive is the best for the children. <--previous • next-->     Julie Erickson, Head Start Teacher, Red Cliff Head Start