Oregon Head Start Pre-K

In 1987 Oregon Head Start Prekindergarten (OPK) was established as Oregon’s publicly funded pre-kindergarten program for children living in poverty. Oregon’s Department of Education and the regional Head Start office govern the program collaboratively. OPK adheres to federal Head Start Performance Standards and fulfills 8 out of 10 NIEER quality benchmarks.

In 1991 the Legislature pledged to expand the program to reach all eligible children, but this goal has not been reached. Until the 2008-2009 school year, funding for the program remained relatively flat. Since 2004, the Ready for School campaign has elevated early education as a leading issue in state policy discussions. As a result, legislators increased funding for Head Start by $39 million for the 2007-2009 biennium, allowing OPK to serve an additional 3,000 three- and four-year-olds.

The good news: OPK is a national model for educating at-risk 3- and 4-year-olds from very low-income families. The program operates in all 36 counties, and Oregon’s investment in Head Start doubles the number of children served by the federal government’s allocation to Head Start (6,000 federally funded slots and 6,400 state-funded slots).

The bad news: In Oregon, more than 18,000 three- and four-year-olds are growing up in poverty, and an estimated 6,000 still lack access to OPK.

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Early Head Start

 

Early Head Start is the only federal program specifically designed to support the early learning of infants and toddlers. The program was created as a counterpart to Head Start to serve children and families living in poverty, starting with prenatal services and ending when children are eligible for Head Start at age 3.

Established in 1994, Early Head Start integrates science-based practices for supporting infants, toddlers and their families and has been subject to a rigorous national experimental design evaluation demonstrating that it yields positive results for at-risk children. It supports a range of home-based, center-based and mixed models, enabling Early Head Start to be tailored to the needs of local communities and to work with existing birth-to-five programs.

Early Head Start takes the same comprehensive approach to child development as Head Start, with a combination of high-quality early learning environments, parental education, health and family support. Because Early Head Start serves infants and toddlers, much of the focus is on building strong, supportive relationships between parents and their young children. Early Head Start families also have access to health education services, and children receive medical, dental and mental health services.

Early Head Start in Oregon

Oregon has fourteen federally funded, one locally funded and zero state-funded Early Head Start programs. These fifteen programs serve roughly 1,700 at-risk children — less than 6 percent of eligible children.

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