Supporting the Head Start Workforce and Consistent Quality Programming

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES <CFR>45 CFR Parts 1301, 1302, 1303, 1304, and 1305</CFR> <RIN>RIN 0970-AD01</RIN> <SUBJECT>Supporting the Head Start Workforce and Consistent Quality Programming</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Head Start (OHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This final rule makes regulatory changes to the Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS) to support and stabilize the Head Start workforce and improve the quality of services Head Start programs provide to children and families. These changes include requirements for wages and benefits, breaks for staff, and enhanced support for staff health and wellness. The changes also include enhancements to mental health services to better integrate mental health into every aspect of program service delivery. Enhancements are also included in the areas of family service worker family assignments, identifying and meeting community needs, ensuring child safety, services for pregnant women and other pregnant people, and alignment with State early childhood systems. Finally, the changes include minor clarifications to promote better transparency and clarity of understanding for grant recipients. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> August 21, 2024. <E T="03">Compliance date:</E> The compliance date for many of the requirements in this final rule is October 21, 2024, or 60 days after this final rule is published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . However, there is a subset of requirements where we expect programs may need more time to implement the regulatory changes. In these cases, we specify an alternate timeline for compliance. See further discussion of these dates in the section entitled <E T="03">Effective and Compliance Dates.</E> </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jessica Bialecki, Office of Head Start, 202-240-3901 or <E T="03">Jessica.Bialecki@acf.hhs.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Statutory Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Effective Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Effective and Compliance Dates</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Severability</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Development of Regulation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. General Comments and Cross-Cutting Issues</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Section-by-Section Discussion of Comments and Regulatory Provisions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Definition of Head Start and Related Terms (§ 1305.2)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Workforce Supports: Staff Wages (§ 1302.90)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Workforce Supports: Staff Benefits (§ 1302.90)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Workforce Supports: Training and Professional Development Plans (§ 1302.91)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Workforce Supports: Staff Wellness (§ 1302.93)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Workforce Supports: Employee Engagement (§§ 1302.92, 1302.101)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Workforce Supports: Staff Wellness (§ 1302.93)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Mental Health Services (Subparts D, H, and I)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Child Health and Safety (§§ 1302.47; 1302.90; 1302.92; 1302.101; 1302.102)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Modernizing Head Start's Engagement With Families (§§ 1302.11; 1302.13; 1302.15; 1302.34; 1302.50)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Community Assessments (§ 1302.11)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Adjustment for Excessive Housing Costs for Eligibility Determination (§ 1302.12)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Tribal Eligibility and Selection Process (§§ 1302.12; 1302.14)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Migrant and Seasonal Eligibility and Selection Process (§§ 1302.12, 1302.14) Transportation & Other Barriers to Enrollment and Attendance (§§ 1302.14; 1302.16)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Serving Children With Disabilities (§ 1302.14)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Suspension and Expulsion (§§ 1302.17; 1305.2)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Ratios in Center-Based Early Head Start Programs (§ 1302.21)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Center-Based Service Duration for Early Head Start (§ 1302.21)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Center-Based Service Duration for Head Start Preschool (§§ 1302.21; 1302.24) Ratios in Family Child Care Settings (§ 1302.23)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Preventing and Addressing Lead Exposure (§ 1302.47)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Family Partnership Family Assignments (§ 1302.52)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Participation in Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (§ 1302.53)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Services to Enrolled Pregnant Women (§§ 1302.80; 1302.82)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Facilities (§§ 1303.42; 1303.43; 1303.44; 1303.45)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Definition of Income (§ 1305.2)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Definition of Major Renovations, Federal Interest, and Purchases (§ 1305.2)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Definition of Poverty Line (§ 1305.2)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Removal of Outdated Sections</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">Compliance With Section 641(a)(2) of the Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Regulatory Process Matters</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Regulatory Impact Analysis </FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Statutory Authority</HD> This final rule is being issued under the authority granted to the Secretary of Health and Human Services by sections 640(a)(5)(A)(i) and (B)(viii), 641A, 644(c), 645, 645A, 648A, and 653 of the Head Start Act (the Act) (42 U.S.C. 9835, 9836a, 9839(c), 9840, 9840a, 9843a, and 9848), as amended by the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007 (Pub. L. 110-134). Under these sections, the Secretary is required to establish performance standards and other regulations for Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Specifically, the Act requires the Secretary to “. . . modify, as necessary, program performance standards by regulation applicable to Head Start agencies and programs . . .”  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and explicitly directs the Secretary to prescribe eligibility standards, establish staff qualification goals, and assure the comparability of wages. This rule meets the statutory requirements Congress put forth in its 2007 bipartisan reauthorization of the Head Start Act and addresses Congress's mandate that called for the Secretary to review and revise the performance standards. The Secretary has determined that the modifications to performance standards contained in this final rule are appropriate and needed to effectuate the goals of the performance standards and the purposes of the Act. The requirements outlined in this final rule shall not be construed to supersede or preempt the requirement for Head Start agencies to comply with other laws, including title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act of 2022, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and any other applicable Federal, state, or local labor standards laws when implementing workforce performance standards. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU> See section 641A(a)(1) and (2) of the Act. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> The Federal Head Start program provides early education and other comprehensive services to well over half a million children prenatal to age five in center- and home-based settings across the country. Since its inception in 1965, Head Start has been a leader in providing high-quality services that support the development of children from low-income families, helping them enter kindergarten more prepared to succeed in school and in life. Evidence continues to support the positive outcomes for children and families who participate in and graduate from Head Start programs. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The most essential component to accomplishing Head Start's mission of providing high-quality early childhood education and comprehensive services is the workforce of approximately 248,000 staff  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> who provide the services to children and families each day. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU> Deming, D. (2009). Early Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head Start. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1:3, 111-134.; Lipscomb, S.T., Pratt, M.E., Schmitt, S.A., Pears, K.C., and Kim, H.K. (2013). School readiness is children living in non-parental care: Impacts of Head Start. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 31 (1), 28-37. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU> Source: Head Start 2022 Program Information Report (PIR). </FTNT> Early educators provide a critical foundation for children to learn and develop  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> and positively impact children's outcomes. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Strong, stable relationships between young children and educators are the key to promoting early development. If programs cannot retain high-quality staff, these relationships are disrupted and outcomes for children and families are negatively impacted. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Currently, Head Start programs across the nation are experiencing a severe staff shortage with turnover at its highest point in two decades. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> This severely impacts the ability of programs to fully enroll classrooms and provide consistent high-quality services to children and families. 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. Research indicates that well compensated early childhood teachers and staff have lower turnover rates and provide higher quality services. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Conversely, a higher rate of turnover am ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 687k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━