Dive Brief:
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A Head Start final rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Friday would boost the early childhood education program's efforts to recruit and retain qualified staff, improve teacher wages and benefits, and provide consistent quality programming for children and families, the agency said in a statement.
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Most Head Start teachers will see a $10,000 annual salary increase, bringing them more in alignment with pay for public preschool educators, HHS said. Head Start grantees, however, won't have to comply with the new wage requirement until 2031.
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The National Head Start Association, a nonprofit organization that represents Head Start families, providers and educators, said in a statement that while it's pleased with the final rule, it worries that without additional federal funding, the number of children and families served by Head Start could reduce "significantly," NHSA said.
Dive Insight:
The new rule is aimed at overcoming the high staff turnover that plagues Head Start programs.
"Low wages and poor benefits — despite increased expectations and requirements for staff — are a key driver of rapidly increasing staff turnover among Head Start teachers and staff," the rule said.
Turnover among all Head Start staff in 2023 hit 17%, a jump from 13.5% in 2019, the 313-page rule said.
In addressing concerns about how Head Start programs will meet the wage and benefit requirements, the rule suggests programs look to reduce vacant positions and restructure budgets.
Head Start, which turns 60 next May, had about 260,000 staff in FY 2022 and was funded to serve about 833,000 children birth to age 5 from low-income families, according to HHS. The new rule, which is expected to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, will take effect 60 days after publication, or around mid-October. However, monitoring for the new rule will be delayed until August 2025 to give programs time to adjust.
Additionally, HHS is providing longer timelines for programs to comply with certain provisions in the new rule. Increases for staff wages, for instance, will not be required until Aug. 1, 2031. Improved staff benefits for full-time staff, such as access to high-quality affordable healthcare coverage, paid personal leave, and access to short-term, free or minimal cost behavioral health service are not required until Aug. 1, 2028. The rule defines full-time staff as those working 30 hours per week or more while the program is in session.
The rule also includes the potential for a limited waiver process from HHS for the wage requirement if annual Head Start appropriation increases fall below an average 1.3% over the prior four years.
"Over and over again, I hear from Head Start programs that have closed classrooms because they cannot find qualified staff," said Katie Hamm, deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development at HHS' Administration for Children and Families, in a statement. "This rule will reverse this trend and put Head Start on a sustainable path by increasing wages, reducing turnover, and improving quality."
NHSA said that while it remains concerned about funding for Head Start, the final rule does address many problems raised by the Head Start community.
"The final rule will allow programs to continue doing what they do best: providing a safe, healthy, and well-rounded classroom experience for young children, while also offering essential support and resources to their families beyond the classroom,” said NHSA Executive Director Yasmina Vinci in a statement.
But House Republican leaders chided the rule. "By finalizing the Head Start rule, the Biden-Harris administration insists on trying to overfund a program with over a thousand known incidents of child abuse," said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the Education and the Workforce Committee, in a statement Friday.
Foxx was referring to an Office of Inspector General 2022 report that found 27% of Head Start grantees recorded incidents where children were abused, left unsupervised or released to an unauthorized person between October 2015 and May 2020.
The rule "smells like an attempt to form Head Start educators into a unionized political block," Foxx added. "Political patronage should never take precedent over children’s lives.”
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