by Jerry Parr | Aug 25, 2026 | Classroom Monitoring, Community Collaboration, Early Childhood, Head Start, NPRM, Strategic Planning
In May 1990, I participated in my first federal Head Start monitoring review at the Inter-Tribal Council of California, under Lee Fields, then the Region XI/XII branch chief. I could not have known then that I was entering Head Start monitoring at a moment of...
by Jerry Parr | Aug 7, 2026 | Early Childhood, Head Start, Strategic Planning
I am approaching the proposed changes to the Head Start Program Performance Standards as a preparedness question rather than an endorse-or-oppose question. What if significant parts of this proposal become the operating environment? For American Indian and Alaska...
by Jerry Parr | Aug 7, 2026 | Early Childhood, Head Start, Strategic Planning
Head Start is a field that knows how to defend itself. When the program is threatened, we talk about children and families. We talk about school readiness, health, parent leadership, community partnerships, comprehensive services, and the extraordinary things programs...
by Jerry Parr | Jul 22, 2026 | Early Childhood, Head Start
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate for the first time in the annual strategic planning meeting of the Calvert County Early Childhood Advisory Council. As someone relatively new to Calvert County—but certainly not new to early childhood systems—I arrived...
by Jerry Parr | Jul 17, 2026 | Early Childhood, Head Start
Conversations with early childhood leaders in other countries often begin with differences—policy, funding, culture, training, and expectations. But they quickly reveal how much the field shares. Across recent conversations in Kuala Lumpur, the same concerns surfaced...
by Jerry Parr | May 22, 2018 | Early Childhood, Head Start
Editor’s note, July 17, 2026: Nearly a decade after this reflection was written, the central lesson still holds: program models succeed or fail less because of what they are called or where they originated than because of how relationships, expectations, resources,...
