ADA

Apple Tree AND THE
“aMERICANS WITH dISABILITIES aCT”

Coverage

• Privately-run child care centers — like other public accommodations such as private schools, recreation centers, restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, and banks — must comply with Title III of the ADA. Child care services provided by government agencies, such as Head Start, summer programs, and extended school day programs, must comply with Title II of the ADA. Both titles apply to a child care center’s interactions with the children, parents, guardians, and potential customers that it serves.

General

The ADA requires that child care providers not discriminate against persons with disabilities on the basis of disability, that is, that they provide children and parents with disabilities with an equal opportunity to participate in the child care center’s programs and services. Specifically:

• Apple Tree cannot exclude children with disabilities from their programs unless their presence would pose a direct threat to the health or safety of others or require a fundamental alteration of the program.
• Apple Tree must make reasonable modifications to their policies and practices to integrate children, parents, and guardians with disabilities into their programs unless doing so would constitute a fundamental alteration.
• Apple Tree must provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services needed for effective communication with children or adults with disabilities, when doing so would not constitute an undue burden.
• Apple Tree must generally make their facilities accessible to persons with disabilities. Existing facilities are subject to the readily achievable standard for barrier removal, while newly constructed facilities and any altered portions of existing facilities must be fully accessible.

Please feel free to contact your center’s director if you need to request an accommodation for your child. If you feel that you are not getting the help you need from your center’s director, please contact the main office at (605)-575-3851.

We cannot just assume that a child’s disabilities are too severe for the child to be integrated successfully into the center’s child care program. The center must make an individualized assessment about whether it can meet the particular needs of the child without fundamentally altering its program. In making this assessment, the caregiver must not react to unfounded preconceptions or stereotypes about what children with disabilities can or cannot do, or how much assistance they may require. Instead, the caregiver should talk to the parents or guardians and any other professionals (such as educators or health care professionals) who work with the child in other contexts.

Title III does not require providers to take children with disabilities out of turn.

Child care centers that are accepting new children are not required to accept children who would pose a direct threat or whose presence or necessary care would fundamentally alter the nature of the child care program.

More information go to:

http://www.ada.gov/index.html