Introduction
Research Questions
- What strategies and practices are Head Start programs and elementary schools implementing to support children as they transition from Head Start to kindergarten?
- What characterizes the partnerships among Head Start programs, elementary schools, and other community partners that support children’s successful transitions from Head Start to kindergarten? What helps strengthen these cross-system partnerships?
The Understanding Children’s Transitions from Head Start to Kindergarten (HS2K) Project aims to better understand how to improve children’s kindergarten transitions from Head Start programs to elementary schools. The transition to kindergarten occurs within and between two distinct systems (early care and education [ECE] and K-12 education) that each work under their own governance structures, philosophies, and accountability metrics.
A systems approach recognizes that organizational conditions set the stage for the scale and success of transition practices in both Head Start and K-12 systems. Policies, perspectives, and professional supports all feed into and provide the structure for the fourth P—practices. Together, each of the 4Ps exists at every level of each system: governing agency, administration, building, and classroom. This brief shares findings related to the 4Ps for Head Start program and school-based practitioners, with examples from HS2K case studies.
Purpose
When children transition from Head Start to kindergarten, they may face different environments and expectations, which can cause disequilibrium and challenges for young children who benefit from routines. These kindergarten transitions occur within a broader context of distinctly different systems, with differing and sometimes contradictory governance structures, policies, philosophies, and accountability metrics.
The HS2K case study was designed to help us learn more about how Head Start programs and Local Education Agencies (LEAs) can better support children and families through that transition. This brief provides strategies from the HS2K project’s collective work and real-life examples of how Head Start programs and LEAs work together to support kindergarten transitions.
Key Findings and Highlights
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Research suggests that coordinated efforts across systems can support better outcomes. This includes better short-term initial school adjustment, long-term social and emotional development, and academic outcomes for children. Leadership amongst policymakers and administrators is key to coordinated efforts.
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Developing strong and positive relationships is easier when people are physically close to one another.
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Intentional planning, dedicated funding, and policies and processes that are written down and known by all are important ways to strengthen supports for transitions from Head Start to kindergarten.
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Community organizations can play an important role in supporting cross-system relationships and activities. They can encourage coordination, provide resources, and amplify messages to families about the kindergarten transition.
Methods
The project team carried out a review of the knowledge base, secondary analyses on national surveys and on Head Start and K-12 written partnership agreements, and a HS2K comparative multi-case study to learn about how programs and schools work together to support Head Start to kindergarten transitions. These findings emerge from across those activities, with a heavy emphasis on the case study.
The comparative case study represents five cases, each inclusive of a Head Start-LEA partnership. We interviewed Head Start and LEA staff from each case that were involved in supporting Head Start to kindergarten transition efforts. We conducted interviews with Head Start and LEA staff and focus groups with Head Start parents from our five cases between April and September 2022, and held follow-up interviews with a subset of focus group parents following their child’s transition to kindergarten, from December 2022 through January 2023.
Topics of interviews and focus groups included background for staff (e.g., role and responsibilities), perspectives on the transition and transition supports, family engagement in the transition processes, transition policies, partnerships between Head Start programs and district/elementary schools, and final reflections. We also asked respondents to describe the composition and structure of the people and community partners they work with directly around transitions, both within and across systems. We used both deductive and inductive techniques to code the interview and focus group data, and findings from the five individual case studies formed the basis of the cross-case analyses.
Citation
Barrows, Mitchell R., Molly Gordon, Stacy B. Ehrlich Loewe, Carol Hafford, Kyle DeMeo Cook (2023). Systems-Level Strategies to Facilitate Kindergarten Transitions: Key Study Findings and Examples from Case Studies of Head Start & K-12 Partnerships, OPRE Report # 2023-233, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Glossary
- Alignment:
- The extent to which systems offer similar or complementary opportunities, or opportunities that build upon one another in ways that reflect a logical progression. Strategies and actions implemented at the organization level to create alignment are intended to strengthen the coordination and continuity between Head Start and K-12 and create meaningful similarities across the systems. Examples of strategies in which alignment can be seen include shared professional learning opportunities, data systems, learning standards, assessment approaches, instructional approaches, transition activities, family engagement strategies, and more (Kauerz, 2018).
- Case:
- As included in the HS2K comparative multi-case study, the combination of the Head Start program (and the center they identified) and the Local Education Agency (LEA)—along with one elementary school within that LEA—that programs identified as those they worked most closely with around transitions.
- Co-location:
- When Head Start children are taught and cared for in centers or classrooms physically located within an elementary school building or campus that also houses kindergarten students. Co-located Head Start children may attend blended classrooms with other pre-k children (e.g., those whose program is state- or district-funded) or attend classrooms exclusively for Head Start.
- Head Start Program:
- An agency, or their delegate, that is a local public or private non-profit or for-profit entity designated by the Administration for Children & Families to operate a Head Start program to serve children age three to five, pursuant to section 641(b) and (d) of the Head Start Act.
- Intermediary Organization:
- An organization that serves to coordinate communication, collaboration, and/or alignment between two other entities (in this case, between Head Start programs and school districts). They may lead the planning, coordination, and management of cross-system tasks.
- K-12 System:
- Public school systems that encompass kindergarten through grade 12.
- Kindergarten Transitions:
- The process of moving into kindergarten from a prior set of experiences. In this report, we specifically focus on the transition from Head Start into kindergarten. We consider the transition to kindergarten to be an ongoing process rather than an event that happens as a single point in time.
- Local Education Agency (LEA):
- A public board of education or other public authority legally constituted within a State for either administrative control or direction of, or to perform a service function for, public elementary schools or secondary schools in a city, county, township, school district, or other political subdivision of a State, or for a combination of school districts or counties as are recognized in a State as an administrative agency for its public elementary schools or secondary schools. In most cases, but not all, an LEA is the same as a school district.
- The 4Ps:
- Four main factors both within and across organizational systems (Head Start and K-12) posited by the HS2K project to influence children’s transition experiences. The first three Ps — (1) Perspectives, (2) Policies, and (3) Professional supports—intersect to influence the quantity, quality, and coordination of the fourth P, (4) Practices.
- Transition Practices/Approaches:
- Systems-level approaches—such as those that help create more alignment in instructional approaches and expectations—and individual-level practices—such as providing information to families or data to children’s future teacher—that are designed to create a smoother transition experience for children and families.