State Early Childhood Technical Assistance Systems

New Jersey

• Section 619 State TA System Description
• 12/1/06

Basic design features

The New Jersey Department of Education's Office of Special Education maintains a network of four Learning Resource Centers across the state. This network of centers has been operating for 20 years, serving the personnel development and technical assistance needs of local school districts. For the last twelve years within each of these centers a Preschool Learning Resource Center Project has addressed needs related to school programs for children aged three through five years. An important feature of these centers is a lending library. Teachers and parents may become members of the learning resource center network and have access to the library materials and to facilities for making their own materials. In addition to the Learning Resource Centers the Office of Special Education also contract with the state's UAP to provide specific training and technical assistance related to preschool. They have provided training to early childhood aides and to districts that have established full day programs for three and four year olds. Federal Part B and Section 619 funds support these technical assistance activities.

Primary clients/recipients of TA services

The centers and the UAP provide assistance to local schoolteachers, school nurses, and school administrators, local head start programs and other preschool programs that provide services on behalf of the school. Sometimes assistance is also extended to the child care community and to health department staff, such as health care coordinators supported through a Healthy America Grant. The state clients are divided into three geographic regions. Families are also considered clients of the TA system and are served by the same network of centers as the other clients.

Ways technical assistance is provided

Technical assistance is provided most frequently through providing information and consultation via telephone and email, state conferences, regional/topical workshops, consultations to local programs, and facilitating peer to peer information exchange and consultation. Technical assistance events often involve parents and educators providing joint training. Occasionally print and /or non-print materials have been developed. A newsletter, "Inclusion Insights", is jointly published by the Office of Special Education and the State Parent Advocacy Network, New Jersey's Parent Training and Information Center. The TA system has conducted some interactive audio and video teleconferencing, and often provides audio and videocassettes as a TA service. As mentioned earlier the centers also have a well-developed lending library.

TA system operations

Coordination and management of the Learning Resource Centers, including the preschool projects is handled by the manager of the Bureau of Program Management within the Office of Special Education. The Bureau helps identify needs and set priorities, assure consistency across the centers, and facilitates joint planning. A master calendar of TA events is developed twice a year. Current priorities relate closely to the results of the recent self-assessment study and monitoring by OSEP.

Evaluation of the TA system

All requests for assistance are documented and reported to the Bureau on a quarterly basis. Discrete TA events are evaluated for consumer satisfaction. Intermediate and long-term impacts of the TA system are currently being examined in the context of the tracking progress on state's improvement plan developed in response to OSEP monitoring of the state.

Relationship of TA system to the monitoring/supervision of local programs

The outcomes of monitoring determine many of the needs and priorities for the TA system. Since there are 700 school districts in New Jersey, local monitoring is currently on a six-year cycle. Local monitoring involves conducting a district self-assessment followed by a verifying site visit, and is handled by the Bureau of Program Accountability.

Relationship of TA system to the state’s Comprehensive System of Personnel Development (CSPD)

The Network of Learning Resource Centers is considered a core feature of the State's CSPD making the TA system a part of the overall CSPD.

Relationship with Part C

Collaboration with the Part C program's CSPD efforts has led to a joint training program on children's transition from Part C to Part B, which was implemented on a county by county basis.

For further information, contact

• Roberta L. Wohle
• Acting Directort
• New Jersey Department of Education
• Office of Special Education Programs
• 100 River View Plaza
• Trenton, NJ 08625
• Phone: 609-292-0147
• Fax: 609-984-8422
• Email:
• Web site: www.state.nj.us/education/specialed/index.html