Students swing on a playground at Meadow Lakes Head Start in Wasilla, Alaska. It closed this year due to funding and staffing challenges. (Image by Lela Seiler, courtesy of CCS Early Learning)
Hundreds of Head Start program leaders from all over the nation are in Washington D.C. this week to talk to their congressional delegations. Members of the National Head Start Association from Alaska to Florida are all asking for the same thing: enough money to pay their staff.
Head Start provides child care, early education and services like health care and dental to more than 800,000 children in low-income families nationwide. The Biden-Harris administration enacted a new rule in August that requires Head Start programs to increase teacher salaries to be comparable to their public school counterparts over the next seven years, an estimated $10,000 salary bump for most. Large operators will have to provide health benefits to employees, and increase access to mental health supports.
The changes, which were proposed last year , are all a response to the early child care workforce crisis that has closed 1 in 5 Head Start classrooms nationwide, despite waiting lists for children to get into programs.