Head Start is a federally funded early childhood education program delivered by local grantee agencies under one federal rulebook, the Head Start Program Performance Standards.
In FY 2024 it was funded to serve 715,873 children and pregnant women, with $11,753,187,818 in federal operations funding — a national system of classrooms, home visits and family child care whose programs employed and contracted with about 251,000 staff in 2023-24.
This guide explains what the program is, who runs it and the jobs inside it.
What is Head Start?
Head Start is a federal early childhood education program for children and pregnant women, delivered through locally run programs.
It comes in two age-based programs: Head Start serves preschool-age children, with classes set by whether a majority are 3-year-olds or 4- and 5-year-olds, while Early Head Start serves infants and toddlers in classes of children under 36 months.
Both operate under the same federal rulebook — the Head Start Program Performance Standards, found at 45 CFR 1302.
The program's scale is a matter of federal record.
In FY 2024 Head Start was funded to serve 715,873 children and pregnant women, with total federal operations funding of $11,753,187,818.
Funded enrollment — a count that excludes AIAN (American Indian and Alaska Native) and Migrant/Seasonal programs — was 488,792 Head Start Preschool slots and 181,049 Early Head Start slots.
Head Start is also not one delivery model.
The standards recognize four program options: center-based, home-based, family child care, or an approved locally designed variation.
Most preschool services run in centers — about 97% of funded Head Start Preschool services were center-based in the 2023-24 program year — while Early Head Start spreads further across settings, with about 67% of its funded services center-based and about 28% home-based.
Slots fill against demand.
Programs must keep a waiting list each enrollment year that ranks children by the program's own selection criteria, so each grantee sets the order in which its funded slots fill.
For a job seeker, the practical picture is this: Head Start is a national system of locally run programs with federal standards behind the classrooms, which makes it a distinct employer category from a single licensed center.
If you are weighing the two, our Head Start teacher career guide covers the role, the classroom duties and the qualification tracks in detail.
Who runs Head Start programs
The federal government funds the program and writes its rules; local grantees run their programs under those rules.
The Office of Head Start posts the Notices of Funding Opportunity that put Head Start and Early Head Start grants up for competition, and organizations apply for those grants through Grants.gov.
The rules the winning agencies must follow are the Head Start Program Performance Standards (45 CFR 1302).
A wide range of organizations can hold those grants.
Eligible applicants include local governments, school districts, tribes, 501(c)(3) nonprofits, for-profit organizations and small businesses; Early Head Start Child Care Partnership grants are open to public, nonprofit and for-profit entities, including faith-based organizations.
Whichever organization wins a grant becomes the grantee — the organization that employs and contracts the program's staff.
How many agencies that adds up to nationwide is not a figure our research could confirm: the federal FY 2024 Program Facts page we reviewed, published at headstart.gov — the Office of Head Start's site — does not state a grantee count.
Local programs are also governed with families in the room, not only above them.
Every Head Start agency must have a policy council with proportionate representation from parents of currently enrolled children, and program staff may not serve on it — the narrow exception is parents who occasionally substitute as staff.
The staffing data carries the same community thread: parents of current or former Head Start children made up 24% of Head Start staff in 2023-24.
For your job search, the structure matters more than the org chart.
You apply to the local grantee — its leadership sets the calendar, the classrooms and the working conditions within the federal standards, so two Head Start programs in the same county can be run quite differently.
Services beyond the classroom
Head Start's standards treat the classroom as one part of the program, and the parts around it are staffed requirements, not extras.
Developmental screening, disabilities inclusion, behavior support, home visiting and family services all have rules behind them — and several are job lines of their own.
Development is screened on a clock.
Programs 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 screening tools.
That rule sits in the current 45 CFR 1302.33; the August 2026 proposal would rescind the section while keeping the statute's screening duties, with more timing flexibility.
Inclusion has a floor: at least 10 percent of a program's total actual enrollment must be children eligible for services under IDEA, unless HHS grants a waiver.
Behavior support is structured too.
Current standards prohibit expelling or unenrolling a child from Head Start because of behavior and limit suspension to a temporary, last-resort measure used after consulting a mental health consultant — the August 2026 proposal would remove that section entirely.
Head Start's enrollment is multilingual.
About 35% of children enrolled in the program were dual language learners in 2023-24, and 63% of those were in families that primarily spoke Spanish at home.
Among the staff who provide child development services, 31% were proficient in a language other than English — language skills are part of the staffing mix by the program's own data.
Head Start also delivers the program inside families' homes.
Home-based programs keep an average caseload of 10 to 12 families per home visitor, with a maximum of 12; Early Head Start home-based programs provide weekly 90-minute home visits — a minimum of 46 per year — plus 22 group socializations.
The home visitor is a distinct Head Start job with its own qualification track, not an errand added to a classroom role.
Family services is a further staffing line — the current standards name family service staff among the qualification categories they cover — and it is the line the family advocate career path sits in.
Head Start programs hire for it.
Jobs at Head Start
Head Start programs employed and contracted with about 251,000 staff in 2023-24, and about 112,000 of them provided child development services — teachers, assistant teachers, home visitors and family child care providers.
Head Start reported a 15% staff turnover rate in the 2023-24 program year, a factor its own data links to under-enrollment.
Open roles are gathered on our Head Start teacher jobs page.
These are the classroom and classroom-adjacent roles, with the qualification floor the current federal standards set for each:
- Head Start Preschool center-based teacher — at least an associate or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education, equivalent coursework, or the alternative route in Head Start Act §648A(a)(3)(B).
- Assistant teacher — a CDA or a state certificate that meets or exceeds it, or enrollment in an associate or bachelor's program, or enrollment in a CDA program to be completed within two years of hire.
- Early Head Start center-based teacher — at minimum a CDA or comparable credential, plus training or coursework focused on infant and toddler development.
- Home visitor — at minimum a home-based CDA or comparable credential, or equivalent coursework within an associate or bachelor's degree.
- Education manager, coordinator or curriculum specialist — a baccalaureate or advanced degree in early childhood education, or a degree plus equivalent ECE coursework and teaching experience.
- Coach — at least a baccalaureate degree in early childhood education or a related field.
- Family child care provider — prior child care experience, plus enrollment in a Family Child Care CDA (or state equivalent) or an ECE degree program before serving, with the credential earned within 18 months.
The bachelor's number is the one to read carefully, because it is a nationwide target rather than a per-teacher rule: the standards require at least 50% of Head Start Preschool teachers nationwide to hold a baccalaureate degree in child development, ECE or equivalent coursework.
What each individual teacher needs is the associate-degree floor above, or one of its alternatives.
The actual workforce runs well past the floor — in 2023-24, 94% of Head Start Preschool center-based teachers held an associate degree or higher in ECE or a related field, and 56% held a bachelor's degree.
Class sizes are set federally, which shapes the teaching day.
A Head Start class with a majority of 4- and 5-year-olds has no more than 20 children — 17 in double session — with a teacher and a teaching assistant or two teachers; a class with a majority of 3-year-olds has no more than 17, or 15 in double session.
Early Head Start classes of children under 36 months run with two teachers and no more than eight children, or three teachers and no more than nine, and each teacher is primarily responsible for no more than four children.
All of these are the current standards' figures — the August 2026 proposal would replace federal group-size limits with state-established standards.
One caveat covers the whole list: the qualification rules beyond the statute are proposed for removal.
The August 2026 NPRM would drop the staff qualification rules that are not in the Head Start Act — director, family child care provider, coach and family service staff among them — while the statutory qualifications for preschool teachers, assistant teachers and Early Head Start center-based teachers would remain.
The same proposal would bar programs from requiring or incentivizing postsecondary credits or credentials unless they can demonstrate the education is necessary for the position, and would have them accept alternatives such as assessments, industry credentials or work experience.
Read today's postings with that footnote: nothing has changed yet, but the non-statutory floors — including the ones behind the Head Start director and home visitor roles — are the ones on the table.
Two 2026 proposals are still pending
How Head Start is monitored
Monitoring is how the federal funding relationship is enforced, and it reaches into the classroom.
Office of Head Start monitoring uses the CLASS Pre-K observation tool, built on three domains: Emotional Support, Classroom Organization and Instructional Support.
The scores feed decisions with real consequences.
Agencies whose average CLASS Pre-K scores fall below the competitive thresholds — Emotional Support 5, Classroom Organization 5, Instructional Support 2.3 through July 31, 2027, rising to 2.5 from August 1, 2027 — face open competition for their grants.
Below the quality thresholds of 6 for Emotional Support, 6 for Classroom Organization and 3 for Instructional Support, OHS supports training improvements.
For staff, that system shows up as observation plus required training.
The standards require staff to complete at least 15 clock hours of professional development per year, along with annual mandated-reporter training and annual training on positive social-emotional strategies.
Of everything on this page, the 15 clock hours are among the safest bets: for classroom teachers they sit in the Head Start Act itself (§648A(a)(5)), so even the August 2026 rewrite would keep them in place.
Career information, not licensing or legal advice. Head Start rules come from the Head Start Program Performance Standards (45 CFR 1302), administered by the Office of Head Start; confirm current requirements with the Office of Head Start or with the grantee you would work for.