What Does a Head Start Teacher Do? Duties and Job Description

A Head Start teacher is the qualified teaching staff member who runs a classroom in a Head Start or Early Head Start program — the federally funded early-education programs the Office of Head Start administers under the Head Start Program Performance Standards (45 CFR 1302).

The standards' own title for the preschool role is center-based teacher, and the work is classroom teaching with a federal structure around it: fixed group sizes, a screening clock, documented practice and day-to-day family communication.

For Head Start preschool teachers, the setting is nearly always a center: about 97% of funded Head Start Preschool services were center-based in the 2023-24 program year, though Early Head Start is more varied — about 67% of funded Early Head Start services were center-based and about 28% home-based.

Head Start preschool classrooms serve preschoolers — the standards describe classes by whether a majority are 3-year-olds or 4- and 5-year-olds — while Early Head Start teachers work with infants and toddlers under 36 months.

Program-wide, about 112,000 Head Start staff provided child development services in 2023-24 — teachers, assistant teachers, home visitors and family child care providers — and the center-based classroom teacher is the role this page breaks down.

Group sizes are set in the standards.

A preschool class with a majority of 4- and 5-year-olds has up to 20 children (17 in a double session), staffed by a teacher and a teaching assistant or by two teachers; a class with a majority of 3-year-olds has up to 17 (15 in a double session).

Early Head Start classes of children under 36 months have two teachers with no more than eight children, or three teachers with no more than nine, with each teacher primarily responsible for no more than four children.

New to the role?

The Head Start teacher career guide covers the occupation as a whole — settings, program structure and the career behind the duties on this page.

The responsibilities group into five areas, and together they are the job.

• Care and supervision. Teachers keep the room safe and supervised all day, indoors and out, within the staffing pattern the standards set. The flexibility for a short-handed room is narrow: ratios may lapse only for brief teacher absences of no more than five minutes, and at nap one teaching staff member may be replaced by a staff member or trained volunteer who doesn't meet teaching qualifications. Both are Head Start rules — state licensing rules on break coverage are set separately, state by state.
• Teaching and behavior guidance. Teachers plan and deliver the program's curriculum and manage the room day to day. Head Start monitors classroom quality through the CLASS Pre-K observation, whose three domains are Emotional Support, Classroom Organization and Instructional Support — so those are the areas of practice a program's monitoring looks at. Behavior work runs inside firm limits: a program may not expel or unenroll a child because of behavior, and suspension is limited to temporary, last-resort use after consulting a mental health consultant.
• Screening and assessment. Head Start must complete or obtain a developmental screening within 45 calendar days of when a child first attends — 30 days for programs operating 90 days or less — using research-based standardized tools (current 45 CFR 1302.33). The requirement sits with the program, and the clock starts at a child's first day of attendance.
• Records, training and mandated reporting. Teachers keep the classroom's documentation current and stay current themselves: at least 15 clock hours of professional development per year, plus annual mandated-reporter training and annual training on positive social-emotional strategies.
• Family communication. Teachers do the daily family-contact work: arrival and pick-up conversations, progress conversations through the year, and communication that works across languages. About 35% of children enrolled in Head Start were dual language learners in 2023-24, and 63% of those were in families that primarily spoke Spanish at home; across the child development workforce, 31% of staff were proficient in a language other than English.

Schedules differ across program options — part-day preschool classes, full-day centers and Early Head Start classrooms structure time differently, and Early Head Start center-based programs must provide 1,380 annual hours of planned class operations under the current standards.

Whatever the calendar, the duties arrive in a recognizable order:

Part of the day	What the teacher does
Arrival	Greet each child and family, run the program's arrival and health routine, and set out the day's materials before the first activity.
Morning block	Lead whole-group time, then move through small groups and interest centers — delivering the planned curriculum while watching what each child does with it.
Meals	Supervise eating, keep the language and routines going, and notice anything different about a child's day.
Outdoor play	The same supervision duty in a different setting, with the group outside.
Nap and rest	Supervise rest and use the quiet stretch for records and afternoon prep.
Afternoon	A second activity block, snack and calm-down routines, with observations written while they are fresh.
Pick-up and after	Hand each child back with a word about their day, then reset the room, finish documentation and set up for tomorrow.

A double-session classroom runs under smaller group-size caps — 17 and 15 instead of 20 and 17.

And on any schedule, the program's 45-day screening window for a new child starts the day they first attend.

A Head Start preschool classroom is staffed by a teacher and a teaching assistant, or by two teachers — so who owns what is built into the staffing pattern, and the standards draw the line through qualifications and staffing.

The center-based preschool teacher needs at least an associate or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education, equivalent coursework, or another route under Head Start Act §648A(a)(3)(B).

The assistant teacher's minimum is a CDA or a state certificate meeting or exceeding it, enrollment in an associate or bachelor's program, or enrollment in a CDA program to be completed within two years of hire.

The August 2026 NPRM, a proposal and not final, would keep these statutory qualifications for preschool teachers and assistant teachers.

The degree and CDA routes behind those lines are the territory of our Head Start teacher degree requirements guide.

One way to divide the work follows that qualification split, though the standards don't assign the tasks themselves: in a teacher-and-assistant room, the teacher carries the classroom's educational responsibility — planning, documentation and family communication — while the assistant co-delivers activities, supervises and keeps routines running.

Volunteers fit where the standards put them, substituting for one teaching staff member at nap.

The classroom also draws on staff outside it, such as education managers, curriculum specialists and coaches.

A posting turns this page into hiring language: a summary, a responsibilities list and a qualifications block.

Here is a sample Head Start teacher job description built from the current standards, so you can map your experience onto what a program is actually screening for — programs reword it, but the duty list underneath comes from the same place.

Sample: Head Start teacher — job description

Position summary. We are hiring a Head Start preschool teacher to lead a center-based classroom alongside a teaching assistant or co-teacher, delivering the program's curriculum and carrying the records and family communication of a classroom run under the Head Start Program Performance Standards.

Responsibilities.

• Deliver daily activities with the three areas Head Start monitors through the CLASS Pre-K observation in view: Emotional Support, Classroom Organization and Instructional Support
• Supervise the class within the group-size and staffing limits — up to 20 children with a majority of 4- and 5-year-olds (17 in a double session), or up to 17 with a majority of 3-year-olds (15 in a double session)
• Work within the program's developmental-screening timeline: Head Start must complete or obtain a screening for every new child within 45 calendar days of first attendance, using research-based standardized tools
• Keep classroom records current and communicate with families — about 35% of children enrolled in Head Start are dual language learners (2023-24), so communication that works across languages matters
• Guide behavior within the standards: no expulsions for behavior, and suspension only as a temporary, last-resort step after consulting a mental health consultant
• Complete at least 15 clock hours of professional development each year, plus annual mandated-reporter training and annual training on positive social-emotional strategies

Qualifications. An associate or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education, equivalent coursework, or another route under Head Start Act §648A(a)(3)(B).

Assistant teachers: a CDA or a state certificate meeting or exceeding it, or enrollment in a degree or CDA program (CDA completed within two years of hire).

Hold a real posting against this list and the gaps show — if supervision, screening turnaround or family communication are vague, those are interview questions.

If you're on the employer side, our guide to hiring a Head Start teacher covers the search from the center's side.

The direct way to put Head Start duties on a resume is to mirror the responsibilities list in the posting, in the standards' own words where they are true of you — action verb first, then what you led and for whom.

• Led a Head Start preschool classroom alongside a teaching assistant, planning and delivering the program curriculum daily
• Supported the program's developmental screening of new children within the 45-calendar-day window under 45 CFR 1302.33
• Kept classroom records current and led family communication, including for dual language learner families
• Completed at least 15 clock hours of professional development each year, plus annual mandated-reporter and social-emotional training

Where a number would strengthen a bullet, use your own — the size of your class, how many screenings you supported in a year, the training hours you logged — and leave it out where you would be guessing.

A bullet you cannot defend in an interview is worse than no bullet.

If you haven't taught in Head Start yet, map the closest duties from the center or preschool work you have done — supervision within your state's staffing rules, lesson delivery, assessments you've run, family conferences — and be upfront that the Head Start version puts a federal clock on some of them.

When your resume is ready, Head Start teacher jobs on ChildcareHires list early-education roles only.

Career information, not licensing or legal advice. The duties on this page come from the Head Start Program Performance Standards administered by the Office of Head Start, and state child care licensing rules are separate. Confirm what applies to your classroom with your program, the Office of Head Start, and your state child care licensing agency.