Preliminary Awardees Announced for Head Start Designation Renewal

The Office of Head Start announced the preliminary winners of the first round of recompetition. 125 agencies were originally selected in the first round of designation renewal back in December 2011. Of those, 80 will continue to receive federal funding, 25 will be replaced by new programs, and 14 will see their grants split up between new and existing programs. In the remaining few programs, OHS states that:

…no applications were found to meet the panel’s high standards: in these areas, Head Start services will continue while a new competition begins this spring to find a new provider.”

The assumption here is that families will not see a disruption in service and will continue to attend their existing programs for the time being, although that’s not 100% clear. A primary concern for many is how OHS and new designees will ensure a smooth transition for children and families. We’ll save that discussion for another time.

We will be hearing more about this when final grantees are announced in July. In the meantime, you can view all of the preliminary selected awardees here.

Tags: designation renewal, recompetition