Management/Staff
Head Start and COVID-19: What you need to know
The current issue of COVID-19 has raised a lot of questions, including the discussion of how it is affecting our schools. More than just classrooms and hallways, for some families school is a haven for their children. Now with the closure of many schools and programs across the country, its left families with the challenge…
Partnering with Your Local Receiving Schools
As a Head Start leader, building relationships within your local receiving schools is one of the best ways to both understand and plan for the process of transitioning a child from Head Start to kindergarten. However, as with most things, that doesn’t just happen automatically or overnight. It takes time to form a plan, and…
The 10 Commandments of Onboarding your Head Start Staff
Employees are one of the most important resources we have in Head Start. Last week, we announced a new training, Onboarding your Head Start Staff. While we have always included elements of employee onboarding in our trainings, as part of our comprehensive Knowledge Management system, we have separated onboarding into its own stand-alone training. With…
What Education Levels are Required for Head Start Staff?
Head Start wants to ensure that the staff and teachers who are serving local families have the appropriate education to do so. The Early Childhood Learning & Knowledge Center (ECLKC) hosts a series of briefs that outlines all the educational requirements for the majority of Head Start staff positions, everything from Executive Directors to Home…
Bus Drivers Can Play an Important Role in Family Engagement
As we know, parent/family engagement is one of the most important and longest-lasting benefits of Head Start. To do it right, it requires an all-hands-on-deck mentality. Every interaction with a parent or caregiver, no matter how small or fleeting it may seem, should be considered when putting together the best plan for family engagement. After…
Vaccination Requirements for Head Start/Early Head Start
Head Start at the national level does not have any explicit rules regarding the vaccination status of children who attend local programs (a bill proposed in 2015 would’ve required all Head Start children to be vaccinated, but never made it to a vote). As it stands now, it is only mentioned once in the Head…
Head Start’s Recommendations for Responding to Potentially Violent Situations
This may be one of the most difficult topics I’ve ever had to write about. No one wants to think about a scenario in which our country’s most vulnerable, our children, might be the targets of intentional violence. This week, another act of school violence made headlines, just seven miles from Columbine, Co, in which…
The Three Entities of Head Start/Early Head Start Program Governance Structure
We recently gave a free webinar on the three entities of Head Start/Early Head Start Program Governance Structure. (Sign up for our mailing list to receive notices about upcoming free webinars). In that webinar, we talked about the roles and responsibilities of each entity, as well as training and reporting requirements. Based on the questions…
Compliance for Background Checks and QRIS Delayed until September 2019
Office of Head Start (OHS) recently announced an update which will delay compliance requirements for background checks and the Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) until September 30, 2019. Under the initial rule, programs were required to comply by September 2017, which was delayed until September 2018. The summary from the updated rule reads: “The…
Relationship-Based Competencies: Foundation for Professional Growth
We’ve reached the ninth and final installment of our blog series on the nine Relationship-Based Competencies, Foundation for Professional Growth. We hope you’ve enjoyed the series and learned a little bit too! (Click here to read all our blogs in the series ») Maintain Professionalism Professional growth is something that everyone should work towards continuously…