This op-ed by Nebraskan Mark Haba ran in the September 29 Lincoln Journal Star: bit.ly/47pWIOD
I’m a past Policy Council member and current board member at Head Start Child & Family Development Program, Inc. I am also a parent board member at Region VII Head Start Association, a parent board member at National Head Start Association and I am on the committee for Parents Unite for Head Start.
Mark Haba
My wife and I have children who have benefited from Head Start and Early Head Start programs. I believe we need to protect these services, supports and parent involvement opportunities that our children depend on.
Head Start is about much more than preschool. It helps children arrive at school healthy, ready to learn and be supported—and it helps us access the health, nutrition, disability, mental health and family support services we sometimes need and can’t easily access otherwise. As parents, we know how important these services are because we experience their impact in our own families.
That’s why many of us are concerned about several proposed federal rule changes that could make it harder for programs to provide the essential services families like ours need.
For many families, Head Start is the place where a child’s health or developmental concern is first identified and where a family gets help finding the services their child needs early in life. This is especially true in our household, where all three of our school-aged children have benefited from Head Start. Our oldest was verified for speech, our middle was verified for specific learning disabilities, speech, occupational therapy, and physical therapy and our youngest qualified for 100% Head Start through our school’s combo program.
Parents of children with disabilities know how important Head Start’s early identification, individualized support, and coordination with families and other service providers can be.
Head Start sees our children every day in a learning environment: talking, playing, listening, moving, following directions, and interacting with other children. That makes the classroom an important place to notice patterns that may not be obvious during brief appointments or at home.
We are concerned about changes in the proposed federal rules that could make it harder for programs to identify and serve children with disabilities or reduce supports. We know the underlying protections for children with disabilities stay in place under federal law. However, we need to preserve the specific thing Head Start does that the law alone doesn’t guarantee —a classroom, every day, where a trained adult is looking for what a single appointment might miss. Every child deserves the opportunity to participate fully in Head Start and receive the support they need to learn and thrive.
We also want children to build the English skills they need to succeed in kindergarten and beyond. Head Start should be held accountable for progress toward this goal without requiring every program or community to use the same approach. When a parent with limited English needs to understand something important about their child’s learning, health or development, an English-only mandate can get in the way of basic communication. That’s why we must preserve the flexibility needed to help children build English proficiency while communicating meaningfully with families in the languages they understand.
Head Start should also remain accessible to families who need it most. I am concerned by the proposed changes that would eliminate family self-attestation as a last-resort option for establishing eligibility. We support standards that ask families to prove eligibility in most situations. But a family experiencing homelessness, fleeing domestic violence or living temporarily with others may not have easy access to documents proving their income or living situation. Programs need practical, safe and flexible ways to determine eligibility while protecting families’ privacy and dignity.
I am also concerned about new rules that would weaken parent engagement. Head Start has been an effective program due to its intentional design of incorporating parents in leadership to guide programming.
Unfortunately, the proposed rule would weaken this engagement. Parents don’t just give input. Through the Head Start Policy Council and other committees, they help make actual decisions. The new rule would remove federal protection for the council. The Head Start Act says parents must have decision-making authority, but that authority doesn’t mean much without rules guaranteeing a way to use or defend it. Modernization should strengthen the partnership between programs and parents, not turn parents from decision-makers into voices that can be politely ignored.
We need to protect what makes Head Start work: essential services, qualified and supported staff, access for eligible families, and a meaningful voice for parents. Let’s keep this commitment to Head Start.
