Local Education Agency (LEA): how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

The term local education agency means a public board of education or other public authority legally constituted within a State to either provide administrative control or direction of, or perform a service function for public schools serving individuals ages 0 - 21 in a state, city, county, township, school district, or other political subdivision including a combination of school districts or counties recognized in a State as an administrative agency for its public schools. An LEA may provide, or employ professional who provide, services to children included in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), such services may include, but are not limited to, such medical services as physical, occupational, and speech therapy.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, the sole-proprietor share should not be read as a direct measure of private practice: an LEA is generally a public education authority, and the flag may not describe how educational or health-related services are organized or delivered. It is a self-reported NPPES field and an imperfect proxy for private practice, so use it as a descriptive indicator of the records, not as a count of privately practicing clinicians or organizations.

By state

New NPI registrations by year

Counts reflect the year each NPI was first issued, among records still active today. The final year is partial: this data covers through 2026-01-11.

Data notes

• The sole-proprietor field is self-reported by the provider in NPPES and is an imperfect proxy for private practice.
• A sole-proprietor count shown as <11 is suppressed: the true value is below 11, which could include zero.
• NPI records are administrative identifiers and may not correspond one-for-one with distinct agencies, service sites, or operating organizations.
• The figures include records whose primary taxonomy is LEA; organizations can have multiple taxonomies, and classifications may change.
• Providers are counted once, by their primary taxonomy code only.

Source: CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) Data Dissemination file, FOIA-disclosable public data under CMS-6060-N. Aggregated by Hero EMR on 2026-08-03; deactivated NPIs excluded; specialty assigned from the primary taxonomy code (NUCC 25.1). Counts below 11 are suppressed. Individual providers are never published. All provider data pages.

Common questions