Recently, U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) sent a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra calling on him to waive the full enrollment initiative penalty for Head Start programs who have not met their enrollment numbers. This is due to challenges recruiting and retaining staff amid workforce shortages.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Head Start programs across the country have faced unprecedented staffing challenges. In response, the Office of Head Start (OHS) temporarily paused its Full Enrollment Imitative (FEI) which is used to ensure full enrollment levers under the Head Start Act.
In 2022, OHS began lifting the pause in the FEI while many programs continued their efforts to recruit and rebuild their workforce. In many cases, however, Head Start programs have been unable to do so, which has prevented them from re-opening classrooms and returning to full enrollment.
Penalizing these centers by reducing or withholding their funding will only make matters worse.
In an effort to support Head Start programs, Senators Murkowski and Gillibrand sent a letter to Secretary Becerra urging him to grant maximum flexibility to Head Start programs “and decline to enforce the recapture, withholding, or reduction of program base grant funding due to under-enrollment where Head Start grantees can show that their efforts to recruit and retain personnel have failed.”
Joining Senators Murkowski and Gillibrand were: Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Jon Tester (D-MT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ben Lujan (D-NM), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Susan Collins (R-ME).
See below for the full text.
Dear Secretary Becerra:
During the COVID-19 pandemic and its resultant economic and workforce crises, Head Start programs (inclusive of Head Start, Early HeadStart, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start, and Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership programs) faced an unprecedented set of challenges. Programs were forced to close facilities, establish virtual learning environments, and comply with layers of federal, state, and local COVID mitigation and vaccination requirements. In response to these challenges, the Office of Head Start (OHS) temporarily paused its Full Enrollment Initiative (FEI), the policy through which OHS implements its authority to ensure full enrollment levels under the Head Start Act.
As the health risks of the pandemic began to recede and programs transitioned back to in-person learning, the recruitment and retention of qualified staff emerged as a primary and continuing obstacle to achieving and maintaining full enrollment. In our states, and throughout the nation, Head Start programs have been hit hard by the workforce crisis, wage inflation, and staffing shortages, which expanded and worsened asprograms attempted to reopen for in-person services after the pandemic. Additionally, the inability to compete with wage inflation prevalent in other industries hinders the recruitment and retention of Head Start staff. The Administration for Children and Families stated in a recent reportthat Head Start “programs experienced the highest rates of staff turnover reported in over two decades this past year—22 percent for classroom teachers and 19 percent for all program staff”. Additionally, the latest National Head Start Association (NHSA) survey shows that 14% of Head Start classrooms were still closed in September 2023, and 76% of those closures were due to staff vacancies.
In September 2022, despite these ongoing challenges, OHS began to incrementally lift the pause in the FEI and to send letters warning of funding reductions for under-enrolled programs.7 Imposing penalties for under-enrollment now will force Head Start programs to make difficult programming decisions, including to forgo being able to serve all eligible children. This additional challenge will exacerbate the challenges they face to rebuild their workforce while they also prepare for potentially significant new wage and benefit requirements, along with other proposed workforce and program quality changes.
Due to the persistent workforce and enrollment issues that continue to challenge Head Start programs, we strongly urge you to take the following actions:
- Employ maximum flexibility when implementing the Full Enrollment Initiative and decline to enforce the recapture, withholding, orreduction of program base grant funding due to under-enrollment where Head Start grantees can show that their efforts to recruit and retain personnel have failed, pursuant to your Secretarial discretion granted by the Head Start Act; and
- Publish a report, in collaboration with OHS, that identifies how many Head Start Centers are enrolled in the FEI and include key findings on the causes of under- enrollment in those centers.
Head Start programs in the communities we represent and across the country reduce poverty by providing the unique combination of earlychildhood learning buttressed by wraparound services that increase social and economic advancement for whole families. We urge you to supportHead Start programs by taking the steps outlined above so that they can continue their crucial work assisting children and families.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.