Introduction
Research Questions
- What does collaboration between Head Start programs and local education agencies (LEAs)/schools to support children's transition to kindergarten look like at the systems level?
- How do kindergarten transition approaches vary by system-level supports and cross-system collaborations?
- What are the patterns of transition from Head Start programs to kindergarten in various schools?
- What are the outcomes of successful transitions for leaders, teachers, families, and children?
The transition to kindergarten is an important milestone for children and families, and it sets a foundation for future success. This transition occurs between two distinct systems that each work within their own governance structures, philosophies, and accountability metrics. To date, much of what is known about supporting children’s transition to kindergarten focuses on classroom-level practices implemented by early care and education (ECE) programs and kindergarten teachers, with little attention to the organizational conditions that support or hinder the implementation of those practices.
This design options report focuses on Head Start and proposes two descriptive study designs to illuminate those systems-level supports and cross-system collaborations. The overall goal of these proposed studies is to better understand the landscape of those systems-level approaches and how they may be associated with positive kindergarten transitions for children attending Head Start and their families.
Purpose
This report presents design options that will enable the field to fill current research gaps around strengthening kindergarten transitions. Documenting the current landscape of systems-level transition supports will help the field better understand how systems-level approaches to the kindergarten transition derive from the current policy landscape, how Head Start and LEAs currently implement these approaches, under which conditions there are facilitators and barriers, and how those approaches can be improved under various contexts.
These design options build upon a theory of change (Ehrlich et al., 2021) that emphasizes systems on both sides of the transition process—Head Start and kindergarten (embedded within the K-12 education system). This theory of change hypothesizes that when transition efforts are coordinated across these two systems, they are expected to lead to successful transitions for educators, families and——most importantly——children. This report presents design options for a descriptive study of Head Start-to-kindergarten transitions. One design includes an innovative sampling approach that focus on all programs and schools within certain geographic areas, while the second design builds upon traditional longitudinal designs by following individual children from one setting to another.
Key Findings and Highlights
This report describes two design options that would address the proposed research questions. The design options are informed by current hypotheses that carefully organizing administrative-level systems, supports, and resources may bolster on-the-ground practices, providing more consistent kindergarten transition experiences for children, their families, and their teachers. Both design options presented in this report address multiple parts of the HS2K theory of change, studying within- and across-system perspectives, policies, professional supports, and practices (“4Ps”).
Design Option 1 takes a “cluster” level approach to sampling, data collection, and analyses of how Head Start programs and LEAs/elementary schools collaborate within sets of geographic areas. The goal of Design Option 1 is to understand the systems-level patterns of collaboration across multiple Head Start programs and LEAs within a geographic area (or cluster). Design Option 2 takes an individual-level approach to sampling and data collection. The goal of Design Option 2 is to follow groups of children from Head Start programs into kindergarten to capture their experiences and outcomes on both sides of the transition.
Methods
Design Option 1’s “cluster” level approach identifies geographic clusters built by first sampling census tracts, then drawing a 2-mile radius around the census tract, and finally selecting all the census tracts touched by that radius (see Figure 1). Each cluster would include all Head Start programs and their corresponding centers, and all public elementary schools and their corresponding LEAs. This design can support examination of transition supports within geographic boundaries, while also taking into account program- and school-level characteristics and their associations with transition supports.
Figure 1: Geographic Cluster Example
Design Option 2’s individual-level approach to sampling and data collection seeks to understand associations between those individual program- and school-level approaches to supporting kindergarten transitions and the outcomes of individual children. This design option samples Head Start programs from across the country and then follows children into kindergarten to sample elementary schools and LEAs for data collection. In addition to the systems-, teacher-, and family-level data collection efforts described under Design Option 1, Design Option 2 proposes to collect additional information from teachers and caregivers about individual children and would provide information on family experiences and outcomes at multiple timepoints.
Both options utilize a set of surveys under development, called the Kindergarten Transition System Supports (KTS2). These focus on collecting information from Head Start program- and center-level administrators and K-12 LEA- and school-level administrators about systems-level supports and collaboration for kindergarten transitions. The designs also include teacher and family surveys.
Citation
Ehrlich Loewe, Stacy B., Sarah Kabourek, Andrew Schaper, Kyle DeMeo Cook, Christina Padilla, Mitchell R. Barrows, Sara Amadon, Tamara Halle, Kristie Kauerz, Cristina Carrazza, Gretchen Streett, Sarah Her, Lekha Venkataraman (2022). Design Options for a Head Start to Kindergarten Transitions Descriptive Study, OPRE Report [2022-203], Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.