As of July 2026, the newly formed Illinois Department of Early Childhood (IDEC) will administer most of our state’s early childhood programs and services. While school districts and ISBE will remain responsible for delivering early childhood special education and related services, IDEC will need to prioritize inclusion in its funding and program standards design to ensure that all children with disabilities and developmental delays can access high-quality early learning opportunities alongside their typically developing peers. As the department releases more information, Start Early will take a deeper dive into our take on what these changes will mean for the state’s early childhood landscape.
There are demonstrated educational and developmental benefits for all kids when children with disabilities learn alongside their typically developing peers. However, even though inclusion is supported by research and the law, children enrolled in community-based early learning settings are frequently not able to access IDEA services in those settings, and are often forced to either endure mid-day transitions to the school district, or forgo services, both of which hinder supports for children with disabilities and delays in their earliest years.
As IDEC endeavors to build a fairer and simpler early childhood system, it will require a coordinated, adequately resourced approach to ensure all children, including those enrolled in community-based settings, can be supported in high-quality, inclusive early learning environments. Below, we’ve highlighted some of the key inclusion related pain-points facing our early learning system that we heard through our engagement of families, providers and school districts.
Our Take:
A lack of funding for inclusion: There is no dedicated funding for early childhood inclusion. This means schools do not have funding to support young children with disabilities in community-based settings, despite federal guidance outlining their responsibility for providing services in the regular early childhood classroom where kids are already enrolled. Likewise, child care programs do not receive meaningful funding to support their ability to meet the needs of children with disabilities in their classrooms.
- School districts face challenges attracting and retaining ECSE teachers as well as related service providers; this makes it difficult for schools to provide inclusive services to students within their own programs, let alone to extend services when students are enrolled in community-based program.
- Community-based programs need access to funding for additional staffing, including for aides or subs to relieve teachers who are collaborating with embedded EI and ECSE support, aides to support transition time, extra staffing to support for professional development time, or an additional teacher, depending on program needs. Programs make capital improvements, including repairs, renovations, and other facilities improvements (building ramps, widening doors, etc.), including the purchase of adaptive indoor and outdoor equipment and sensory equipment to support participation of children with disabilities.
Recommendation: Establish dedicated state funding to support inclusion that can be used by schools to support inclusive practices within district ECE programs, by community-based programs to strengthen/implement the delivery of IDEA services to in their regular ECE classrooms, and by communities to support communities to explore and scale new models of special education service delivery, and other issues.
