By Khari M. Garvin
Dear Head Start family and friends,
As my time winds down as director of the Office of Head Start (OHS), I am sending you a note to share my feelings of fondness for and appreciation of our nation’s Head Start program. I also want to express my gratitude to all of you who help bring this wonderful program to life.
The Head Start program captured my heart fully 25 years ago, and I have — from that day forward, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health — loved and cherished this program. And over these many years, we have grown together through expansions, reauthorizations, sequestrations, and updated regulations.
I. Love. The. Head. Start. Program.
I love the Head Start program because of its audacity to wage war against poverty: It draws a line in the sand to safeguard America’s most precious resource — children and families — by putting a check on homelessness, food insecurity, health disparities, education inequality, and other factors commonly associated with poverty.
I love the Head Start program because of its thoughtful, research-based design that necessarily includes the involvement and input of parents and caregivers at the heart of its service-delivery model.
I love the way Head Start programs make room for an individual’s talents to be incubated and nurtured, often creating a glidepath for a parent (or anyone!) to go from a program volunteer to a classroom aide, a teacher or family service worker, a manager, to a CEO.
I love that the Head Start program’s worldview does not ignore those who society often renders as “the least of these” and that the program truly understands that poverty does not have to be a final destination for anyone.
Much has been said about the Head Start program’s unique brand of “comprehensive services” — that signature blend of education, health, nutrition, and family engagement services that distinguishes Head Start from all other early care and education programs. I so love this about the Head Start program! And through the years, I have come to more fully understand that it is the cumulative effect of all these services working together that produces the child and family outcomes that we are all driving toward. Routine dental screenings with follow-up treatment and timebound goal setting with parents are as critical to breaking the cycle of poverty as addressing early learning domains in the classroom. We never want to prioritize one service over the others, but rather embrace them all to achieve full impact.
I love the Head Start program because it is reliably fulfilling its destiny as a critical stakeholder in the broader early care and education ecosystem, working alongside child care, pre-K, home visitation programs, and family, friend, and neighbor care with purpose to support the needs of children birth to age 5. The Head Start program has never been funded to serve every eligible child. Maybe one day that will change. But in my 25 years, I have yet to read a single data report or statistic confirming that every young child has access to high-quality care. Until then, there always remains an opportunity for Head Start programs everywhere to recruit and enroll eligible children of greatest need.
I love the amount of flexibility allowed by Head Start regulations. Among the statutes and performance standards is a handful of ordinances that unlocks endless possibilities for Head Start grant recipients to implement innovative and new approaches to service delivery. Please do not overlook or underestimate the power of 45 CFR §1302.24 of the Head Start Program Performance Standards or Section 648 of the Head Start Act, which grant the authority for innovative program models. These provisions empower Head Start programs to reimagine and redesign their service models to meet the unique needs of 21st century families living in each service area — spanning from Puerto Rico to Pennsylvania, Pleasant Hill, Plainview, the Pueblos, Pilot Station, and the Pacific Islands.
As part of our nation’s prescription for breaking the cycle of poverty, the Head Start program is more than a just a service provider. It is also, more broadly, a strategy that can be implemented to transform whole communities by building a highly skilled workforce and improving local infrastructure to support the healthy development and success of children and families.
I know that I am not the only one who loves the Head Start program. The list of supporters and champions of this six-decades-old, time-tested strategic blueprint is as diverse as it is long. The Head Start program is highly regarded by so many: previous and current enrollees, staff, community partners and advocates, civil servants and public officials, vendors and consultants, researchers, policymakers, funders, and everyday people who know a good thing when they see it.
We all get to love the Head Start program in our own ways! And in those rare instances when, driven by our love, we might find ourselves at odds about what is best for the program, let us pause for just a moment to remember that true love will always seek to protect and build up.
I will never fully understand why I was so graciously given the opportunity to lead the program I have loved so deeply for so many years; but I am eternally grateful to President Biden for the tremendous blessing of this appointment as director of OHS!
A huge thank you to everyone who has worked so hard over the last four years to preserve and protect the legacy of the Head Start program. I’m excited for the possibilities — imagined and unimagined — for the Head Start program’s next 60 years.
Khari M. Garvin is the director of the Office of Head Start.