Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource Today

Credit: Lillian Mongeau/EdSource Today

New performance standards proposed for Head Commencement, the federally funded preschool program for low-income families, would more than double the required minimum plan hours that centers must stay open.

The standards would also streamline regulations to "reduce bureaucratic burdens," support local innovation and crave teachers to be trained in the latest inquiry on developing the cognitive and social skills that children demand to succeed in school. The proposed standards were released on June 16.

The program serves nearly i one thousand thousand low-income children across the country from birth to age five. Nearly 115,000 California children nourish a Head Start plan.

"These operation standards are the management we have been advocating the program needs to get," said Rick Mockler, executive director of the California Head Start Association. "It's a major overhaul that is overdue."

"These operation standards are the direction nosotros have been advocating the program needs to go," said Rick Mockler, executive managing director of the California Head Start Association. "It's a major overhaul that is overdue."

The most recent revision of the functioning standards for the 50-year-sometime program was done in 1998. The U.S. Department of Wellness and Human Resources has been working on the revision for the past eight years. Beginning June 19, the public can annotate on the new standards through the Federal Registry. The deadline for posting comments is Aug. xviii.

After the annotate menstruum, the Administration for Children and Families, which oversees Head Showtime for the department, will review the comments. That could take a twelvemonth or longer, Mockler said. Then the terminal regulations are issued, he said, most likely in the fall of 2016.

Currently, Head Start centers must exist open up for a minimum of three-1/ii hours a day for 128 days a yr. If the new standards are approved, centers would accept to exist open for half dozen hours a twenty-four hour period, 180 days a year – a typical K-12 schoolhouse day and year in California. Keeping children in preschool is also a focus of the new standards, which emphasize reducing chronic absenteeism, limiting suspensions and eliminating expulsions.

Under the proposed standards, students would be tracked for omnipresence, said Giannina Perez, senior director of Early Childhood Policy with the Oakland-based advancement organization Children Now. If they are an hour tardily, someone would text or call the parent asking if the kid was coming that twenty-four hour period. If a child is absent-minded for four days, someone from the program would visit the child's home. The program would then work with the parents to assist them overcome any obstacles that are preventing the kid from attending.

"They are setting the stage early with that focus on attendance, working with parents," Perez said. "That'southward taking a more positive approach on the front end rather than later on when they are missing uncomplicated school."

The recommendation for longer days is partly based on research studies that indicate that having more time for high-quality interactions between adults and children leads to greater gains in children's cerebral skills and increased school readiness.

Infants and toddlers, who are in Early Caput Outset, are already in six-hr programs, Mockler said. Preschool children, ages 3 and 4, in Head Start are often the ones with the shorter days, he said.

Withal, keeping the centers open for a total school day and year is costly – an estimated $ane.1 billion per year. The current Head Start budget is about $9 billion, Mockler said.

"Moving to a total twenty-four hour period is huge," Perez said. "But is there money to pay for it? Or volition programs accept to cutting back?"

If the longer 24-hour interval is approved, programs would have a yr to transition to the longer 24-hour interval and twelvemonth, which would also requite Congress time to appropriate the money, Mockler said. If the funds were not approved past Congress, then the programs would have to reduce the number of children they served, he said, similar to what happened during the federal sequester in 2013. Simply Mockler is hopeful.

"We do know there is bipartisan back up for Head Offset," he said. "Even while the Business firm was rejecting the president's universal preschool initiative, they increased funding to Head Start."

Too the longer solar day, other parts of the standards, such as new curriculum and teacher grooming, may also accept a price tag.

Perez said she is excited nigh the requirement that Head Start use a curriculum that is based on research about what works best for children, particularly children who are dual language learners. A program's curriculum "is a tell-tale sign of its quality," she said.

She also supports the emphasis on individualized professional person development, such equally coaching, to help teachers improve.

While some expenses may increase, some of the proposed standards are likely to cut costs, Mockler said. He said the new standards reduce regulations past one-3rd, giving more latitude to local administrators. For example, nether current regulations, programs must take a parent quango at each of their centers to back up parent interest. Under the proposed standards, the parent council could be a regional body if that worked better locally, he said.

The bottom line, Mockler said, is that "we are accountable based on the data and outcomes of the children more procedural and administrative tasks."

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