An Early Head Start teacher plans and runs a classroom for children under 36 months: the day moves between feeding, diapering and napping routines, infant-toddler learning activities, active supervision, development records and daily family communication.
Under the current Head Start standards, classes are small — two teachers for up to eight children, or three for up to nine — and each teacher is primarily responsible for no more than four.
What does an Early Head Start teacher do? The short answer
An Early Head Start (EHS) teacher runs an infant-toddler classroom inside the federal Head Start program.
The standards that shape the job sit in the Head Start Program Performance Standards at 45 CFR Part 1302, issued by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and administered through the Office of Head Start — so parts of this job are written in federal rules rather than set center by center.
Three of those rules give the role its shape.
The qualification floor is a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential — or a comparable credential — plus training or coursework focused on infant and toddler development (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(1); Head Start Act §645A(h)).
The class is small: two teachers for no more than eight children, or three teachers for no more than nine, with each teacher primarily responsible for no more than four.
And center-based programs must provide 1,380 annual hours of planned class operations.
The scale, before you apply: in FY 2024 Early Head Start was funded for 181,049 slots (a count excluding AIAN and Migrant/Seasonal programs), and about 67% of funded EHS services were center-based in the 2023-24 program year — so the center classroom described here is where most of the program's funded services are delivered.
The rest of this page stays on the job itself: the core duty list, the day from arrival to pick-up, who is responsible for what in the room, a sample job description and how to put the duties on a resume.
The career in full — settings, advancement and the credential route — is in the Early Head Start teacher career guide.
These are the current standards — 2026 proposals are pending
Core Early Head Start teacher duties: care, teaching, supervision, records, family communication
The job breaks into areas of responsibility, and at this age they run through each other — a diaper change is a language lesson, and a feeding is a chance to watch development happen.
An EHS teacher works across all of them in the same hour.
Responsive care routines. Feeding bottles and solid foods, changing diapers, settling children for naps and comforting an upset infant are core work, not interruptions to it.
The care is done with the child, not just for them: narrating a diaper change, holding an infant through a bottle, staying with a toddler through drop-off distress.
Infant-toddler teaching. Teachers plan and deliver learning experiences for a room that mixes children who are not yet mobile, newly mobile and climbing everything: floor play, sensory materials, songs, books and back-and-forth talk, matched to each child's development.
The federal credential floor reflects the specialization — the required training or coursework is focused on infant and toddler development specifically (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(1); Head Start Act §645A(h)).
Active supervision. With eight or nine children and two or three teachers, supervision is a designed system rather than a watchful glance: positioning to keep the whole room in view, tracking the room through free play and outdoor time, and working inside the staffing limits the standards set.
Those limits reach small moments — under the current standards, ratios may lapse only for brief teacher absences of no more than five minutes, and during nap one teaching staff member may be replaced by a staff member or trained volunteer who does not meet teaching qualifications.
Records and screening. Teachers keep the room's paper trail: daily logs of feeding, sleep and diapering for families, ongoing notes on each child's development, and the structured observation that feeds the program's assessment work.
The standards require a developmental screening — using research-based standardized tools — within 45 calendar days of when a child first attends, or 30 days for programs operating 90 days or less, and a teacher's ongoing observation notes are the raw material that process draws on.
Family communication. EHS teaching is family-partnership work: two-way exchanges at drop-off and pick-up, daily reports on eating, sleeping and diapering, and a steady read on what each family needs the classroom to know.
Language is part of the job's reality — about 35% of children enrolled in Head Start were dual language learners in the 2023-24 program year, and 63% of those were in families that primarily spoke Spanish at home, while 31% of staff providing child development services were proficient in a language other than English.
Ongoing training. The standards require at least 15 clock hours of professional development per year for each Head Start classroom teacher, plus annual mandated-reporter training and annual training on positive social-emotional strategies.
The 15-hour minimum is also in the Head Start Act (§648A(a)(5)), so the August 2026 proposal would leave it standing even where other training rules change.
The credential behind the teaching duty is the infant-toddler CDA; the steps to earn it are in how to become an Early Head Start teacher.
Early Head Start teacher duties across the day: arrival to pick-up
Sequenced, the duty list looks like this.
The exact clock times belong to your program's schedule, but the day below is the shape a center-based EHS classroom day takes.
Arrival. Teachers greet each child and family member, take the hand-off notes — how the night went, last feeding, sleep — and give each child a quick look-over as they come in.
Handwashing and health routines start the room's rhythm, and the day's first family messages happen in these minutes.
Morning care and play. Breakfast or bottles, diapering on each child's own schedule, and the first stretch of floor play and small-group activity.
Because each teacher holds primary responsibility for no more than four children, the morning runs on knowing those children's routines in detail — who naps at what point, who is learning to self-settle, who needs the push toy brought out.
Nap. Lunch winds into naps on staggered schedules for infants and a tighter block for toddlers.
Nap is also a staffing hinge: the current standards let one teaching staff member be replaced during nap by a staff member or trained volunteer who does not meet teaching qualifications, and ratio lapses are allowed only for teacher absences of five minutes or less.
Teachers use the quieter stretch for documentation, materials prep and room reset.
Screening in season. When a child is new, the 45-calendar-day screening window shapes the first weeks: structured observation and standardized tools folded into the regular routines, so the program has a developmental picture within the deadline.
One flag — the August 2026 proposal would rescind the screening section of the standards while keeping the statutory screening duty, with more timing flexibility, so this window is worth confirming.
Afternoon and pick-up. Snack, outdoor play and gross-motor time, another round of diapering and toileting, then the closing hand-offs: each family hears about the day — feedings, sleep, diapers, one thing their child did — and the room is reset for tomorrow.
Center-based programs must provide 1,380 annual hours of planned class operations, and the teaching team covers that schedule together — ask how your program spreads those hours across the calendar.
What is an Early Head Start teacher responsible for vs other staff in the room?
In the room, the responsibility split is between the teaching team and everyone else.
Under the current standards an EHS class runs with two teachers (up to eight children) or three (up to nine), and each teacher is primarily responsible for no more than four children.
The class runs as a teaching team: the room's care, teaching, supervision and documentation are shared across it, and the four-child primary-responsibility limit applies to each teacher on it.
Assistant teachers work in Head Start programs too — Head Start's program data counts them among the staff providing child development services, alongside teachers, home visitors and family child care providers.
Around the room sit program-level roles.
Education managers, coordinators and curriculum specialists — who under the current standards need a baccalaureate or advanced degree in ECE, or a degree plus equivalent coursework and teaching experience — set curriculum and support classrooms instead of running one.
Coaches — who under the current standards need at least a baccalaureate degree in ECE or a related field — work on teaching practice through observation and feedback.
Two other EHS roles get confused with the classroom job.
Home visitors run the home-based option: EHS home-based programs provide weekly 90-minute home visits — a minimum of 46 per year — plus 22 group socializations, and Head Start home-based caseloads average 10-12 families per home visitor.
Family child care providers deliver EHS out of their own homes under the program's FCC rules, with a credential timeline of their own under the current standards: prior child care experience, plus enrollment in a Family Child Care CDA (or state equivalent) or an ECE degree program before serving, and the credential earned within 18 months.
The program options — center-based, home-based, family child care and an approved locally designed variation — and who staffs each one are covered in what Early Head Start is.
And if the comparison in your head is with the preschool side, the Early Head Start vs Head Start differences page covers the two roles side by side.
Sample Early Head Start teacher job description
A posting for this role starts from the federal floor; each program adds its own framing on top.
Here is a sample job description assembled from the duties above — the parts that come from the Head Start standards are marked with the section, and everything a program adds on top belongs to the program.
If you hire for this role, the employer-side playbook for hiring an Early Head Start teacher has the full write-up.
Early Head Start Teacher — [Program name], [City, State]
[Program paragraph: your grantee or delegate agency, the ages and schedule you serve, your curriculum approach.]
Position summary
The Early Head Start Teacher co-leads a classroom of up to eight children under 36 months with a second teacher, providing responsive care, infant-toddler learning experiences, developmental screening support and daily family communication under the Head Start Program Performance Standards.
Responsibilities
- Provide responsive care — feeding, diapering, napping, comforting — as part of the curriculum, not a break from it
- Plan and deliver infant-toddler learning experiences: floor play, sensory materials, songs, books and back-and-forth language, matched to each child's development
- Maintain active supervision within the class staffing plan — two teachers for up to eight children, or three for up to nine, each with primary responsibility for no more than four children (45 CFR 1302.21)
- Support the developmental screening within 45 calendar days of each child's first day, using research-based standardized tools (45 CFR 1302.33)
- Keep daily records — feeding, sleep, diapering — and contribute observations to each child's ongoing assessment
- Communicate with families at drop-off and pick-up daily, and support the program's family-engagement work
- Complete at least 15 clock hours of professional development per year, plus annual mandated-reporter and social-emotional strategy training (45 CFR 1302.92)
Qualifications
- CDA credential or a comparable credential, plus training or coursework focused on infant and toddler development (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(1); Head Start Act §645A(h)) — the federal floor for this role
- [Your program's experience preference and any additional credentials]
- [Other hiring steps your program requires]
Schedule and compensation
[Hours, calendar, pay and benefits — set by your program.]
Because the CDA floor for this role is written into the Head Start Act, the August 2026 proposal would leave the qualification rule in place even as it drops qualification rules that exist only in the regulations.
The qualifications block is the part to treat as settled; the class sizes and ratios are the part to confirm with the Office of Head Start.
Early Head Start teacher duties for a resume
On a resume, these duties only land if they carry the structure and numbers that make them real to a hiring director.
A few moves that work:
Lead with the classroom composition. "Co-taught a classroom of eight children under 36 months with a second teacher, with primary responsibility for four" says more than a generic childcare line — it fits the class limits the current standards set (two teachers for no more than eight children, each primarily responsible for no more than four), so a director reading it knows you know the environment.
Name the screening work. If you supported developmental screenings inside the 45-day window using standardized tools, say so — assessment is a duty of this job, not a bonus skill.
Put the credential up top. The CDA with the infant-toddler focus is the qualification the federal floor names; list it in your header or first bullet, along with progress toward it if you are still enrolled.
Show the training cadence. The annual professional development hours, mandated-reporter training and social-emotional strategy training are standing requirements of the job — listing them tells a hiring director you already know the training cycle.
Quantify the family work. Daily reports, conferences, languages you speak.
Family communication is a named duty area in EHS, and language skill is concrete: 31% of Head Start staff providing child development services were proficient in a language other than English in 2023-24.
When the resume is ready, Early Head Start teacher jobs are listed on our board, and the Early Head Start teacher career guide picks up the career-path questions this page set aside.
This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Early Head Start runs under the federal Head Start Program Performance Standards (45 CFR Part 1302), issued by the Administration for Children and Families and administered through the Office of Head Start; the rules were in active federal rulemaking as of October 2026, so confirm current requirements with the Office of Head Start and the program you would work for.