We've spent the past few weeks with a proposed federal rule open on our desks, and we keep landing on the same thought. Whoever wrote it has never sat in one of our classrooms. Never sat at a kitchen table helping a family work through an intake form. Never plated a hundred lunches before ten in the morning. Never driven the route in the dark in February. Never spent a Sunday night trying to find someone to cover a classroom by seven Monday morning. Never waited to hear whether their own child got a slot so they could go to work, or finish school.

The Office of Head Start published it on August 7 and titled it "Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs." The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the agency that oversees the Office of Head Start, published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) rescinding majority of the Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS).

What's on the list isn't paperwork. For example:

• Teacher-child ratios and group size would stop being federal requirements, replaced by whatever state licensing says.
• The administrative cost cap would drop from 15 percent to 5 percent.
• Parent committees would become optional.
• A family's own word would no longer establish that they're experiencing homelessness, and staff would pick up a new duty to report eligibility problems.
• Service hours would return to a floor set in 1994.
• More than 1,400 requirements would come out.

What we're doing

Starting September 7, one prompt a day for thirty days. Each takes a different piece of the rule, runs under 90 words, and points you at what to cite.

1. Follow along on our social media pages.  Read the day's post. It names the change and points you at the source. You can also scroll down to view the 30 days calendar.
2. You add what only you can write, which is what it would mean where you are.
3. You file it, one of three ways or all.

If you can only manage a few, that's okay. Even one comment makes a difference.

Everything filed by October 6 becomes part of the official record. The agency has to respond to the substantive points commenters raise, which is why it matters that your comment says something specific about your own program.

A few words before you begin

Either way, comments post publicly, exactly as written, and can't be edited or withdrawn. So change any detail that would let someone recognize a particular child or family. Your point holds without them.

Your agency may file its own comment. That's a decision for your director and board, separate from yours.

If you partner with Head Start

Then we especially want to hear from you, and your situation is different. School districts, clinics, food pantries, libraries, community colleges, referral agencies: file on your letterhead and sign it. How would these changes affect you and your community?

-Write what you see on your end. The children arriving in your kindergarten classrooms. The families you refer back and forth. The students in your early childhood courses headed into these jobs. The office can't hear that from Head Start, which is why it lands differently coming from you.

Pick two or three days rather than all thirty. We'd love to hear what you shared, too. Let us know when you file.

Three ways to file

Three days are different. On days 10, 18, and 25 we'll ask you to contact your members of Congress, which is a separate activity from commenting on a rule. Do those on your own time from your own account, and check with your compliance lead first. Skip them if you'd rather. You're still in.

All thirty days

Each day's prompt posts that morning. Weekend days are written for parents and Policy Council members and take about ten minutes.