What jobs are there in Head Start? Every role from teacher to director

Head Start is federal in its rules and local in its hiring: grant recipients run the programs, and those programs employ their own staff.

The federal Head Start Program Performance Standards (45 CFR 1301-1305) set the qualification lines below.

In fiscal year 2024 the program was funded to serve 715,873 children and pregnant women; in 2023-24 it employed and contracted with 251,000 people.

The shape of the grant decides which jobs exist.

In 2023-24, 62% of grant recipients ran both Head Start Preschool and Early Head Start, 12% ran Early Head Start only, and 26% ran Head Start Preschool only.

A combined grant staffs infant-and-toddler teams and preschool teams at the same time, and programs can also run the home-based option, which sends staff into family homes.

Grouped by function, the roles look like this:

• Classroom roles — Head Start and Early Head Start teachers, assistant teachers, and family child care providers who deliver services from their own homes.
• Family and home-based roles — family advocates who work directly with families on the family partnership process, and home visitors who deliver the home-based option.
• Management roles — education managers, family services, health and disabilities managers, fiscal officers, coaches and the director.
• Support roles — cooks, drivers and office staff, plus consultants such as mental health professionals.

About 112,000 staff provided child development services in 2023-24 — teachers, assistant teachers, home visitors and family child care providers.

The program's FY2024 fact sheet also reported a 15% staff turnover rate in the 2023-2024 program year, and attributed under-enrollment largely to staff shortages — that turnover included.

Classroom staffing is organized by age, and the federal qualification lines differ by track.

In Early Head Start centers, teachers providing direct services to infants and toddlers need at least a CDA credential or comparable credential, plus training or coursework focused on infant and toddler development (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(1)).

In Head Start Preschool classrooms, center-based teachers need at least an associate's or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education, equivalent coursework, or another route the Head Start Act allows (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(2)(ii)).

Assistant teachers have their own line: a CDA — or a state certificate that meets or exceeds it — or enrollment in an associate or bachelor's program, or in a CDA program to be completed within two years of hire (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(3)).

The teacher and assistant-teacher qualification rules are statutory — written in the Head Start Act itself — so they are the lines an August 2026 rewrite proposal would leave standing even as it removes other staff qualification rules.

The workforce already skews credentialed: in 2023-24, 56% of Head Start Preschool center-based teachers held a bachelor's degree, and 94% held an associate degree or higher in early childhood education or a related field.

The Head Start teachers guide covers the classroom day, pay and applications in depth, and open Head Start teacher jobs are listed on the role page.

Family-facing staff are a defined part of Head Start staffing.

Family advocates work directly with families on the family partnership process, which includes a family partnership agreement — jointly developed and shared with parents — in which staff and families review progress, revise goals and track whether needs and goals are met (45 CFR 1302.52).

Staff hired after November 7, 2016 into this work need, within 18 months of hire, at least a credential or certification in social work, human services, family services, counseling or a related field (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(7)).

The family advocates guide covers the role in depth.

Home visitors deliver the home-based option, working with families in their homes rather than a classroom.

The qualification is a home-based CDA credential or comparable credential, or equivalent coursework as part of an associate's or bachelor's degree (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(6)).

The home visitors guide explains caseloads, visit schedules and how to enter the role.

Head Start also counts family child care providers among the staff who deliver child development services.

Providers serving a Head Start program need prior child care experience, and before serving they must be enrolled in a Family Child Care CDA program — or a state equivalent — or an early childhood education degree program, earning the credential within 18 months (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(4)(i)).

Each of the management roles below has its own qualification line in 45 CFR 1302.91.

The director leads the program, and the Head Start director overview covers that job in full.

Around the director:

• Education managers and coordinators, including curriculum specialists: a baccalaureate or advanced degree in early childhood education, or a baccalaureate or advanced degree plus equivalent ECE coursework and early education teaching experience (45 CFR 1302.91(d)(2)). This line is statutory, mirroring the Head Start Act.
• Family services, health services and disabilities managers — three roles under one rule: at least a baccalaureate degree, preferably related to one or more of the disciplines they oversee, for anyone hired after November 7, 2016 (45 CFR 1302.91(d)(1)).
• Fiscal officer: a CPA, or at least a baccalaureate degree in accounting, business, fiscal management or a related field, for anyone hired after November 7, 2016 (45 CFR 1302.91(c)).
• Coaches: the current standards require programs to run a coordinated coaching strategy that assesses education staff and offers intensive coaching to those most likely to benefit (45 CFR 1302.92(c)). The August 2026 proposal would remove the coaching-strategy requirement; its cost analysis put the baseline at 5,432 Head Start coaches with average pay of $65,789. The coaches guide covers the role.

The August 2026 proposal would also remove the non-statutory qualification rules — including those for directors, family child care providers, coaches, family service staff and health professionals — while the statutory lines for education managers, curriculum specialists, teachers and assistant teachers would stay.

Until a final rule publishes, the current standards are the ones grant recipients hire against.

A Head Start program runs on non-teaching staff too, and the federal rules reach them.

Cooks work under federal meal rules: Head Start meals for children 3-5 must conform to USDA requirements in 7 CFR parts 210, 220 and 226, and USDA child nutrition funds must be the primary payment source for meals (45 CFR 1302.44).

That puts the USDA meal requirements at the center of the kitchen job.

The cooks guide walks through the meal pattern and the role.

Drivers are program employees covered by the same federal screening rule as every other hire — 45 CFR 1302.90(b) names transportation staff expressly (see "How to apply" below).

Office and administrative staff keep the records side of the program moving — enrollment paperwork, family files, attendance.

Programs also bring in consultants — for example, mental health consultants must be licensed or supervised by a licensed mental health professional and have experience serving young children and families (45 CFR 1302.91(e)(8)(ii)).

Three things shape the workday: the federal standards, the professional-development expectation, and the mission.

On training, Head Start staff complete a minimum of 15 clock hours of professional development per year (45 CFR 1302.92(b)(1)) — training is a scheduled part of the job, not an optional extra.

Pay and benefits are where the 2026 politics matter most to staff.

The 2024 rule added two workforce requirements that are in force today: by August 1, 2028, full-time staff — defined as those working 30 or more hours per week — must have access to affordable health coverage, paid leave and short-term behavioral health services (45 CFR 1302.90(f)); and by August 1, 2031, Head Start teachers must be paid at least comparably to public-school preschool teachers in the local district, adjusted for qualifications, experience and hours (45 CFR 1302.90(e)), with programs of 200 or fewer funded slots largely exempt.

The rest of the experience is the program itself.

Staff work with families as partners — the family partnership process is ongoing, with staff and families reviewing and revising goals together — and the workforce includes the families it serves: parents of current or former Head Start children made up 24% of staff in 2023-24.

Ask a program how its year is structured before you assume a school-year schedule: center-based classrooms and home-based services do not necessarily run on the same calendar.

Head Start hiring happens at the program level: grant recipients run the programs, and those programs employ their own staff, so the search is local — find the programs near you and apply through each one's careers page or HR office.

One gap to know about — our research did not find a total count of grant recipients on the federal FY2024 fact sheet that carries the staffing figures on this page, so there is no single directory number to lean on here; headstart.gov's program-data pages are the place to check for current counts.

1. Find your local grant recipients. Every role on this page — teacher, home visitor, family advocate, cook, driver, manager, director — is hired locally.
2. Match your credentials to the qualification line. Read your role's line in 45 CFR 1302.91 (the sections above summarize each) and lead your application with the degree, credential or coursework it names.
3. If you are a Head Start parent, say so. Programs must consider current and former Head Start parents for employment vacancies for which they apply and are qualified (45 CFR 1302.90(b)(6)) — and parents of current or former Head Start children made up 24% of staff in 2023-24.
4. Expect a two-stage background check. Before hiring any employee — including transportation staff — a program must interview, verify references, check the sex offender registry and obtain a state, tribal or FBI fingerprint criminal history check; the remaining checks (the other fingerprint check and the child abuse and neglect registry) are due within 90 days, and the full check repeats at least every five years (45 CFR 1302.90(b)).

When you're ready to look, every Head Start director job posted on ChildcareHires is on the role page, and classroom openings are on the Head Start teacher jobs page.

Career information, not licensing or legal advice. Head Start rules come from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Head Start (Head Start Program Performance Standards, 45 CFR 1301-1305); confirm current requirements with the Office of Head Start or the grant recipient you are applying to.