Supporting the Head Start Workforce and Consistent Quality Programming

Supporting the Head Start Workforce and Consistent Quality Programming Webinar

Glenna Davis: Hello, and welcome everyone to the OHS Supporting the Head Start Workforce and Consistent Quality Programming webcast. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to our Head Start Director, Khari Garvin. Director Garvin, the floor is yours. 

Director Khari Garvin:  Glenna, thank you, and hello, everyone. Welcome. Good afternoon to many. Good morning to many others. Thank you so much for joining us today. I am happy to announce that we have released updated Head Start program performance standards, and I am so proud of the step forward that we're taking together, and I'm so excited to share This news with all of you. I am here today with a few colleagues from the Office of Head Start.

Our Policy and Planning Director Jess Bialecki is going to share some highlights of these new standards and how they have changed from the NPRM, that is the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that we published several months ago. I'm also joined by my talented Office of Head Start Deputy Director, Captain Tala Hooban.

Who is going to close this out today by telling all of you how we're going to support you moving forward through this process. But first I got to take a step back and talk about how we got here and how we got to such an important moment. Head Start is the national leader in providing high-quality early education and other comprehensive services, particularly for children and families who are furthest from opportunity.

And our standards represent the gold standard for early care and education. The Head Start model has always leveraged the strengths of our communities, along with the latest in social and behavioral science. And since the inception of this program, we have paved the way in establishing high-quality services for children and families even when that has been hard to do. I know, and I believe that Head Start staff are the heart of this program. 

Every single one is dedicated to the mission. Head Start staff step up every time to give those who are furthest from opportunity the best shot. at success in school and in life. We know that Head Start staff have stepped up to break the cycle of poverty from the beginning when the Head Start program was founded. The staff have stepped up to get degrees when Congress set new education requirements for teachers. They stepped up to continue providing critical services to children and families during the COVID-19 pandemic. They stepped up to improve and adapt each time that they were asked. Time and time again, I think we all agree that Head Start staff have stepped up.

But that has also meant that Head Start staff have time and time again been asked to do more with less. Many got degrees without a pay raise. They stretched farther and farther to meet the needs of children and families in their communities. And you know what? Head Start has long been subsidized by the generosity and goodwill of dedicated staff who, because of their unwavering commitment, have chosen to accept low wages to support the mission. Many of whom, by the way, are women, and in particular, Black and Brown women. Tell me where the equity is in that. I believe that the bill has now come due, and we had to take action. Programs can only stretch so far. I don't have to tell you all how tough it is out there right now. And this house of cards that we've built is not sustainable.

But children and families across the country need Head Start now and for years to come. Historically, Congress has been a partner in this effort and has increased funding to support high quality services and Head Start, and we look forward to continuing to partner with them to meet this need, but Congress won't be able to do that if we aren't clear about what that means.

It's the Office of Head Start's job to step up once again to set the bar for what it means to have a strong, stable, high-quality program that serves children and families. And that's what we've done with these updated standards. We first shared our ideas for updating the standards last November when we published what I referenced earlier, a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking or NPRM for short.

Do you remember that? The changes we announced today are all part of a final rule, which is the formal way that we update our program requirements. Now, I'd like to bring up a few slides and share just a little bit about these updates. Let's talk about workforce. Many of the changes are focused on the Head Start workforce who again and again have shown their dedication to the mission of Head Start.

First of all, the standards now include requirements that Head Start programs pay educators higher wages so that they earn the same as preschool teachers in elementary schools that have similar jobs. I feel like I need to say that one more time. These standards include requirements that Head Start programs pay educators higher wages so that they earn the same as preschool teachers and elementary schools that have similar jobs.

And more than that, all staff and Head Start need to earn a wage that covers their basic living expenses in their area of the country because no one working in Head Start should be earning poverty level wages. Can we agree to that? The updated standards require programs to establish or update a pay structure for all staff positions. We assume most programs already have a paid structure in place, like a salary scale or perhaps a wage ladder. But this new standard requires programs to take a look at this pay structure and ensure it promotes competitive wages across programs. 

All staff positions in the program, not just teachers, cooks, bus drivers, family service workers, health professionals, on and on it goes. The updated standards also ensure that staff have health insurance, paid leave and access to behavioral health services that won't break the bank. I think this is all pretty good news. Another big focus of these updates is mental health. And mental health is really everyone's business. It is part of the comprehensive services Head Start provides, but we can't pull it out and address it elsewhere.

Mental health impacts children, families, and staff. The updated standards integrate a strengths-based approach to make it clear that mental health supports need to be integrated throughout Head Start services to create a program wide culture of mental health. That means taking a multidisciplinary approach to mental health, making sure that everyone understands their role in supporting the well-being of children, families, and staff.

And it also means understanding what mental health consultation is and utilizing it to support a program wide approach to mental health, as well as a focus on prevention so we can provide supports early. It's important to us that you and the children you serve feel safe, and supported and cared for in our Head Start programs.

The changes to our Head Start standards that they do just that, including strengthening support for mental health. And we're not just focused on the workforce and mental health. The upstate, the updated standards ensure that Head Start programs are effectively and equitably meeting the evolving needs of the communities they serve and improve the quality of services that Head Start programs are known for.

The standards ensure that family service workers have caseloads that allow them to effectively meet the individual needs of each family that they work with. And the new standards clarify what safety incidents should be reported to the Office of Head Start. and on what timeline. The new standards also specify what behaviors we consider to be inappropriate when working with children and those that are prohibited, a lot of which already aligns with broader definitions of child maltreatment.

And they make sure that programs have a plan in place to protect children from exposure to lead and Head Start programs because we know that lead exposure in early childhood can be really harmful to children's development. Transcribed and finally, we know that one main way we determine Head Start eligibility is based on family income.

But we know that in some areas of the country, particularly in big cities, families have a higher cost of living, driving large, driven, pardon me, largely by, expensive housing. These families may be earning just above poverty wages, but they spend a lot on housing. They have very little left each month after paying rent.

The updated standards include an option to deduct excessive housing costs from a family's income so that these families that are effectively living in poverty will now be eligible. for Head Start. These changes are a huge step for Head Start in the early childhood field more broadly, but they aren't easy, and I know that.

And a lot of you have asked if more funding comes with these updated standards, and the short answer is no. More funding does not come with these standards. Only Congress can decide to increase funding for programs, which they have historically done time and time again. We just can't sustain this program any longer by asking staff to accept low wages.

Programs have been stretching their resources to serve as many children as possible, but we've stretched beyond the boundaries of sustainability. You can see this in the classrooms that said empty because we can't hire staff, and these standards reflect what we need to do to provide a stable program that can be maintained for years to come.

And if we do not receive additional funding from Congress, Head Start programs may need to restructure their budgets and even their program designs over the coming years to ensure that their model is effective. It's sustainable. That might mean offering fewer slots to Children in future years, especially if those slots are already empty.

It may also mean exploring new options for blending and braiding Head Start funds with other sources of funding. I know that this is new for many of us. I get that. But I also know that Head Start agencies have been Uncanny resilience and an uncommonly strong ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

 I know that we will find our way. I know we will find our way. And I know that we're going to emerge this time on a more solid foundation with more stable foot. Each individual program will have different needs in enacting these new standards. Many programs have already taken big steps towards these changes.

There are other programs that face unique challenges in their community. But we are committed to partnering with you on the path forward, and I'm proud of the progress that comes from our partnership so far. Now, when we published the NPRM last year, you stepped up to help us get this right. I personally spoke to programs across the country to hear what they thought of our proposals.

And over 1,300 people and organizations submitted comments to the federal register, even during the busy holiday season on this matter, and we listened, we made significant changes to the proposed policies, based on all of your comments. Expert feedback. We listened to you when you said we needed to, for example, consider the impacts on different programs like small programs.

And we also listened where you said that you needed more flexibility around responding to the needs of your individual communities. The updated standards are stronger thanks to your partnership. And this effort reflects an incredible amount of work from people who came together to do their best thinking.

Thank you. We believe the end result is a set of standards that is responsive to comments, responsive to suggestions, and also reflective of expertise from across our country and ensures that Head Start continues to lead the way. With that, I'd like to turn this, turn all of this over to our Policy and Planning Division Director, Jess Bialecki. Who's going to share some additional examples of how we've listened to you. Jess, I'm asking you please to share some examples and shed some light on some of the updates that we have that are reflected, in what is now the final rule. All yours, Jess. 

Jessica Bialecki: Great. Thanks so much, Khari. Thanks, Khari. Hello, everyone. I'm so excited to be here with you all today. Like Khari mentioned, we made many changes to our proposed standards from the NPRM based on your feedback. I'm going to share some highlights here but want to note that we also have upcoming webinars. Where we'll delve into more of the content.

When I'm done, I'll turn it to Tala, who will tell you how you can learn more. But for now, I'm so excited to share these changes. We are incredibly grateful to the Head Start community for helping us set standards that make sense for many program types and diverse communities that we serve. I'm going to start with a couple of big changes we made to the workforce policies.

First we heard loud and clear that some of the wage policies may be particularly challenging for small programs. Small programs, many of which serve rural or tribal communities are crucial part of Head Start. We want them to have a viable path to sustainability. We've included a flexibility for small programs, those with 200 or fewer funded slots in their agency will not be subject to the wage parity and minimum pay components of the wage policies in the new standards or to the benefits policies. 

Now, we still ask small programs to make progress on wages and benefits, but we recognize that might look different for small organizations. We also heard and understand the concerns that you shared, and I see some shared in the Q&A here as well about the potential impact of the wage policies in the absence of additional funding. While we are committed to stabilizing Head Start, even if that means we're not able to serve more children in the short term, we also recognize how challenging it would be to implement these policies if funding doesn't keep up.

If funding from Congress is very low for several years, we have added an option for the secretary to put the brakes on the wage policies for programs that would have to cut enrolled slots and are meeting quality benchmarks. Now, we also made several other changes to the workforce policies that we don't have time to get into all of them today, but we'll cover in more detail in the coming weeks, such as extending the implementation timeline for the benefits policies from two to four years, being much more flexible on staff breaks and paid leave. Removing the requirement for adult size furniture. We heard you loud and clear on that one. And clarifying the ways programs can measure pay parity.

Another place we heard a lot of helpful feedback was on our proposed mental health policy. We've revised the standards to now require a multidisciplinary approach to mental health rather than the multidisciplinary team we proposed in the NPRM because we heard you when you said there were many ways to integrate mental health without mandating specific staff roles.

We also heard about the challenges programs may face in obtaining mental health consultation services directly from a mental health consultant each month. We know there are challenges in the mental health workforce as well. While programs still need to have a mental health consultant, that monthly requirement can also be met by having the mental health consultant work in coordination with other licensed mental health professionals or behavioral health support specialists, which can include traditional practitioners recognized by their tribal governance.

Now, like I mentioned, the updated standards clarify what incidents should be reported to OHS. We heard from all of you that the timeline we proposed in the NPRM might present some unintended challenges. We took that feedback, and the updated standards include a seven day calendar — seven calendar day reporting requirement, meaning that reports should be filed immediately, but no later than seven calendar date.

Which aligns with what was released in the reporting Child Health and Safety Incidents IM a couple years ago but had not been codified in our standards until now. We also clarify that you don't need to submit an incident report for program closures for things like holidays or a snow day. Finally, we made a lot of changes throughout the new standards from what we proposed in the NPRM to be clearer about our intent to respect programs autonomy and to reduce administrative burden wherever possible. 

For example, we did not include the proposal to add 46 weeks to the Early Head Start duration requirements because we heard from many of you that it would have a detrimental impact on programs. In particular, we know this is significant for tribal programs as they expressed in public comments that the ability to be flexible about how to meet the 1,380 hours requirement through the calendar year has supported traditional tribal practices and important local and cultural events.

We heard you, and we want it to respond accordingly. We also heard how hard it would be to implement the requirements for preventing and addressing lead exposure as we had originally proposed. The updated standards still ensure that children are not being exposed to lead in Head Start, while also allowing programs flexibility to do this in a way that makes sense in your state and local context.

I came to the Office of Head Start after running an early childhood program myself. I was a teacher and a program director, so I'm particularly proud of how we listened and responded to feedback from programs in the updated standards. I really look forward to continuing to work with you as we begin to implement these new standards. And on that topic, I'm excited to turn it over to Captain Tala Hooban, our wonderful OHS Deputy Director, who will share more with you about the path forward from here. Tala.

Tala Hooban: Thank you, Jess. And thank you, Khari. Hello to the OHS family and good morning, good afternoon for folks. I see everyone is from all over the nation. It is so nice to be here with you today and for such a great cause. I also know that we're throwing a lot at you at once. Let's talk about how we're going to support you through this Head Start program in implementing these new standards.

Now that we know the baseline, we probably have a lot of questions. I want to make sure that you have a plan in place to make sure you get the support you need as you plan your next steps. First, we're going to make sure you have a way to learn about these updated standards. While I hope you read the final rule that is posted on the ECLKC, I know that is not the best way for folks to learn.

We're rolling out updated standards as part of our Nurturing the Promise campaign. This, this logo you'll see here. It will be the branding we use on all our events and resources to support the updated standards. I will share in a moment what that would look like. We're also working with our training and technical assistance system to make sure that you have the resources that align with these new requirements and support you as you make these changes in your programs.

And now Khari mentioned the partnership between OHS and the Head Start community. We're working to make sure that we are doing our part by making sure that all of our OHS staff understand the new standards and that our systems, like regional office processes, data systems, and monitoring reflect these updates.

Finally, we're also going to hit the road this fall and come out to hear from you. Our leadership team is planning stops around the country where we can hear from you about what you need to move forward with these changes. Keep an eye out for more of that, more of that information in the coming weeks. Today, is launching the Nurturing the Promise — oh, my God, I keep messing up the logo, the logo right here. Please stay tuned for resources, webinars, and other materials that will be coming out in the coming days and weeks under that name. That will signal you that the information is related to these new standards.

Specifically, we are holding an overview webinar on Wednesday, August 28th from 130 to 3 PM Eastern time. That will discuss in more detail these new standards and address the questions that we know that you will have. Then in September, we will hold orientation webinars that dive into the details of these standards so that we can make sure that everyone has a strong initial understanding of the changes.

And then beginning in October, the Nurturing the Promise campaign will focus on specific topics. from the new standards each month. And as you see on the slide, the first topic, first monthly theme is child health and safety. The best way you can learn more about the updated standards is to register for the overview webinar on Wednesday, August 28th.

The webinar will provide you with more details on the updated standards, as well as more details about what to expect from programs in the beginning stages of implementation, like how we'll be handling these changes and monitoring for fiscal year 2025.

That's a lot. Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to be with us today. We're really excited about this change, and I know you are too, because I'm seeing a lot of reactions. Jess? Let's see how many questions we can answer. There's a lot coming through with a little bit of time.

Jess: Let's see what we can get, we can get to and then know that we'll have lots of time to dive into the questions as we go 

Tala: move 

Jess: forward. 

Tala: The first one we have, when do these requirements go into effect? I see a lot of folks are asking about timelines generally, but also a few have asked, about the caseload requirements for family partnerships too.

Jess: Great question. The updated Head Start program performance standards are technically effective immediately on the official publication date of the final rule, which will be this Wednesday, August 21st, 2024. But not to worry, As noted in the final rule, the changes to the standards have different compliance dates, which refers to when programs must be in compliance with particular standards.

Some of the requirements have a compliance date, the earliest compliance date is 60 days after the publication date. That would be October 21st, 2024. Now, as you'll see in the rule, and as we mentioned, there are several requirements that have a longer compliance timeline. Including the benefits requirement, which is four years now, instead of the two years that was proposed in the NPRM, and then, of course, the wage requirements, which has a 7 year implementation timeline in a compliant state of August 1st, 2031. We will be publishing, we know it's a lot to keep track of, and we want to make it as easy as possible, so we will be publishing a compliance dates table on the ECLKC, on publication date, so you can see them at a glance.

Tala: Thank you, Jess. The next question is, do the wage standards apply to early Head Start teachers or just those working in Head Start preschool programs? 

Jess: Yeah, the wage standards absolutely apply to early Head Start and Head Start preschool. And, in fact, as you'll recall from, from Khari's slide, there's, one of the wage standards is actually, we call the comparability standard, saying that wages need to be comparable between early Head Start and Head Start preschool staff. Adjusted, of course, for as they are, across the standards for qualifications, education, job worked and, and hours and, and days worked. 

I do want to mention because, this came up Early Head Start and Head Start Preschool, that there was another change in the role with this final rule around our terminology and some people have been using this, I think, for some time, but we kind of want it to make it official. Head Start will now refer to kind of the umbrella program, the Head Start program. All of our age groups that we serve in Head Start, Early Head Start, we will use to refer to our, infants, toddlers, and pregnant women, people that we serve. And then Head Start Preschool will refer to services for our 3 and 4-year-olds. We're just making that a little more clear in the way that we talk about, the ages, and, and children and families we serve. 

Tala: Thank you for that. I was going to ask you that. how are we defining excessive housing costs? Does it just include rent or mortgage payments? And how can people learn more? 

Jess: Excellent. I'm so glad that you brought up. I happen to know one of Director Garvin's favorite parts of the role and mine as well, because we have to recognize that housing costs have gone up dramatically in many, if not most areas of the country. And we want our eligibility criteria and determinations to be responsive to that. As, mentioned, we have this provision around sort of using, or deducting excessive housing costs from the income — the annual income that is used for eligibility determinations. If a family spends more than 30% of their annual income on housing costs.

Anything over that 30% is considered excessive. Now that is specifically defined, in the rule as what counts as housing, what counts as housing expenses is specifically defined in the rule. So kind of what is and is not in that bucket. and then we also just recognize that this is an area that we want to provide quite a bit of time sensitive technical assistance around.

We know this is one of the provisions that goes into effect 60 days after the publication of the rule. Again, that's October 21st, and that many programs will be eager to take advantage of this of this flexibility. Look out for more resources on this one, including a tool to kind of more easily help you plug in family’s information and then get out on the other side, what their adjusted, income should be for determination purposes.

Tala: Thank you, Jess. If the small agency exemption means small, does the small agency exemption mean that small agencies don't have to follow all the standards? 

Jess: I saw a lot in the Q&A, around the small agency exemption. As I mentioned, when I was talking before, this is a provision that we're quite excited about because it's one that we put in directly in response to public comments that we received with concerns about sustainability, for small agencies, with the, the new wage requirements. Again, to be very clear, the small agency exemption is for agencies that have 200 or fewer funded slots. And those agencies are not subject to the wage parity and the minimum pay components of the wage policies. Specifically, that piece around having to reach parity with public preschool or 90% kindergarten or having minimum pay for all head start staff that supports a basic cost of living. 

We do ask small programs still to make progress on wages and benefits and to have an updated salary scale or pay structure. I also should mention that in addition to being not being subject to the wage parity and minimum pay, they're also not subject to the benefits policies that those are the ones that go into effect for years after publication. 

Tala: Thank you. Jess, you mentioned something about 46 weeks for duration and early head start, and I'm seeing a lot of questions about that. Can you remind us what we say about early head start duration in the new standards? 

Jess: Essentially, we don't say anything. We just decided not to adopt the changes that we had proposed in the final rule in — sorry, in the NPRM in the final rule around early head start. We had proposed in the NPRM that there would be a minimum of 46 weeks. To meet the 1,380 hour requirement, that based on feedback that we received, we declined to include in the final rule. 

You will not see that change in the final rule. And again, I just highlighting that, one of the reasons that we, we did that was, was in the feedback to tribal programs in particular who appreciated that flexibility given cultural practices and requirements, in their communities. As of now, a program, must provide an early Head Start program must provide 1,380 annual hours of planned class operations for all enrolled children. And that is, that remains the same from our current standards.

Let's see a couple more that I noted is here was a question about local public schools and if you didn't have, a local preschool, a public preschool to compare to, which I think is a great question. Generally, we want to be clear that the benchmark that we are expecting programs to use for the pay parity standard is for your community. It's not comparing it to a national average. 

We recognize that things look very different across our, our communities and what might be cost of living or, the, the right salary.I just want to say as a former teacher, we all know, everybody in education should be paid much more, but the right salary in terms of, matching to the local public-school context, that will look different in different parts of the country.

What we're asking you to look at is the public preschool in your community. Now, if you don't have a public preschool to compare to, you can use 90% of the local kindergarten in your public school system. And if you'd prefer to use a neighboring school district that uses a higher salary, you of course can do that as well.

We aren't trying to cap, that if there's a neighboring district that uses higher salaries. And I just saw a question come in, as well related to this. Someone asked, preschool teachers within school systems must have teacher certification while Head Start teachers do not. How would we compare those two positions to determine what Head Start teachers should be paid?

the other part of comparability is not just kind of geographical of where you're located, but we are saying very clearly that this should be adjusted for qualifications, education, the job being done, and the hours and days worked. We are not saying that someone with one type of degree in one setting should be paid the same as someone with a different degree in another setting.

What we're saying is if you have a bachelor's and you work as a Head Start teacher and then you're in a public preschool and you have a bachelor's, that there we would be looking for the parity, not, not if those degrees or hours worked are different. And we want to be really clear about that because I know that was a point of confusion in the NPRM. We want to make sure that this parity and then also our pay structure within programs make sense for based on what people are doing and what they're bringing to their jobs.

Tala: I think one more really popular question. There's so many. We're trying to sift through them is, are you sharing slides? 

Jess: love that question. What we are going to do, hopefully it's even more helpful is we're going to share the entire recording of this. The recording will be processed and post it to the ECLKC. We know that this happened very quickly as sometimes these things do. The whole process did not happen quickly but coming out and letting you know to be here on Monday morning — or Monday morning for some, Monday afternoon for others did happen quickly. We deeply appreciate that over 3,000 people showed up today on very short notice, but we also recognize that you likely have many colleagues who weren't able to make it today. We will process this and get this up on our website as soon as possible.

Tala: Thank you. I'm hoping you all see all the questions that are coming through and that we will not have time to answer all of them on the phone or on the webinar. Before I take it to Khari to close out, I just wanted to take a few minutes to personally thank you directly. Head Start staff are the foundation of our mission to provide this high-quality early childhood education and the comprehensive services we provide to children and families.

And anyone I know that has interacted with Head Start programs has witnessed the commitment of the program staff and at the Office of Head Start on the federal level. I want to make sure that you hear that we really deeply value the contributions and the partnerships we have had — of each of the roles everyone holds in the programs from teachers to family service staff, home visitors, cooks, custodians, bus drivers, managers, leaders, and more.

There are a lot of people that touch Head Start programs, and that's what makes it, the community, stronger. I can't thank you all enough for all that you do each and every day. You make sacrifices each day to support these children and families in your communities to make sure they are successful and have the chance to succeed in life. And it makes a huge difference. Please, please keep up the good work. And with that, Khari, I am turning it back to you. 

Khari: Mattel, I appreciate that. And I think you've summed it up perfectly. Honestly, I really can't say enough about the value of our Head Start colleagues and those who work in programs all across the country and as well as in many U.S. territories as well.

I've said many times publicly as I've traveled this that I will repeat now. You are the lifeblood of the program. I just want to say thank you for the hard work and effort over these many decades. and just thank you so much for the way that, as I said at the top, that you've shown up over and over and over again.

Really, really can't do this work without you and, and really appreciate you. And you've shown up during challenging times. you've shown up during, offering critical supports to Children and families. and I would say in good times and not so good times. and we've had the opportunity to sort of take this step together most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, but at other times in our nation's history as well.

To all of you who labor now or for those who have labored, thank you for the effort. But what a great moment. I just believe that for all that you all have given over these years and including right now, it is now our time to show up and it's our turn to show up for you. We're taking this chance to stabilize the head start workforce.

We're taking this chance to put some things in place that will sustain our effort and sustain, the beauty and viability and utility of this program as we continue moving forward. I hope you see it that way. These updated standards, they are big changes for Head Start. They're big changes for Early Head Start.

They're big changes for the broader early care and education field and big changes for the children, and families that we serve. I know that changes can't. They can be scary. I know that I don't want you to be afraid of this. I really don't. I mean, this is an exciting time. I don't want the excitement of what we're doing here with Head Start and, how we're actually repositioning the program and changing our trajectory to make sure that we can continue to be successful for another 60 years and beyond that.

Don't be afraid of that. Don't allow that to sort of suck up the action in the room from the excitement that we really should, I believe, garner from this moment in this opportunity as well. Just building on the legacy of the good work that's already been done. Don't be afraid of the change,. We do have the opportunity to make sure that while we fight to break the cycle of poverty for children and families, we have the opportunity to make sure that no one that works for Head Start is earning poverty wages. I said that earlier, I repeat that now just to make sure that we understand and share the same understanding about the goals for this and where we're headed and the commitment that we are kind of doubling down on.

For all of the professionals that labor and all of the categories and Head Sart again, not just our teachers, including our teachers, but not just our teachers, family service workers, cooks, bus drivers, custodians, family service workers, health administrators and on and on and on again. goes. We're really concerned about the welfare for all who labor, and our head start programs.

And we have the opportunity now, I believe to meaningfully improve the lives of those who we serve as well as those who dedicate their lives to head start Children and families. I can't wait. I cannot wait to see what we're going to continue to accomplish together, particularly with these new rules that will surface with the different compliance states. I want to thank all of you for giving us your time today in this moment. I thank you for the great questions that were asked. 

There will be other opportunities, other information that we'll be disseminating along the way. I don't want anyone to feel like, well, this is it. Jess has already made you aware that we We'll make the recording of this available, but there will be other engagements coming as we continue down this pathway of bringing to life and lifting these new standards. Thanks to all of you and I hope you have a great rest of the week. So long everyone.