42 U.S.C. § 9843 — Technical assistance and training

(a) Secretarial training and technical assistance.
(1) Authority. Using funds identified in section 9835(a)(2)(C)(i), the Secretary^* must provide Head Start programs with technical assistance and training, directly or through grants, contracts, or other arrangements the Secretary considers appropriate. The purposes are to improve program quality and help children succeed in school.
(2) Process. The process for deciding what assistance and training to provide must, as far as practicable, address local agencies' and programs' needs for quality improvement and expansion. It must also respond to local needs, including through an ongoing way to receive input from people and agencies running Head Start programs.
(3) Activities. When providing assistance and deciding how to allocate resources, the Secretary must give priority to: (A)(i) correcting program and management deficiencies found in reviews under section 9836a(c), including helping local programs create quality-improvement plans under section 9836a(d)(2); (ii) helping agencies ensure children's school readiness; and (iii) activities that supplement funds under section 9835(a)(5)(B) for classroom staff training and career development, including instruction on serving children with disabilities, and training for non-classroom staff such as home visitors and other staff working directly with families, including training to increase parent involvement, family literacy, and parenting skills. (B) To the maximum extent practicable, the Secretary must also: (i) help agencies create joint efforts with States and other in-State^* entities for effective professional-development systems; (ii) provide help for family-literacy services, directly or through an experienced entity, both to improve agencies' services and to enable agencies with effective results to train other agencies and cooperating providers; (iii) help agencies and programs take part in communitywide planning, needs assessments (including for homeless children and families), and self-assessments; (iv) help develop full-working-day^*, full-calendar-year programs when community need is clearly shown, help programs transition to them with parent involvement and all-day programming, and speed sharing of innovative models; (v) help serve families with very young children, including agencies applying to serve or serving additional infants and toddlers under section 9840(a)(5); (vi) help develop sound management, including financial procedures; (vii) help secure and maintain adequate facilities; (viii) help develop mobile and home-based and other innovative models; (ix) support agencies, policy councils, and policy committees that meet section 9836a(a) standards but have program, quality, or financial issues documented in reviews; (x) improve outreach, participation, and service quality for homeless children; limited-English-proficient children and families, especially where their population has greatly increased as measured by the Census Bureau; and children with disabilities, especially when enrollment opportunities or funded enrollment for them is below 10 percent; (xi) increase classroom staff's ability to serve classrooms with children with and without disabilities; (xii) address rural programs' needs, including barriers to recruiting and keeping teachers, developing staff skills, reaching eligible families, involving parents, providing home visits, and obtaining health screenings; (xiii) train governing-body, policy-council, and, when appropriate, policy-committee members to perform their functions; (xiv) help programs have qualified staff who prevent childhood obesity through developmentally appropriate, research-based activities stressing physical activity and healthy nutritional choices in daily classroom and family routines; (xv) help Indian Head Start agencies provide on-site and off-site staff training that builds on Indian children's and families' strengths to improve parent and family engagement and staff development, especially child and family development; and (xvi) help agencies choose and use the measures described in section 9836a(b).
(b) Additional support. The Secretary must use funds identified in section 9835(a)(2)(C)(i)(II)(cc), directly or through grants, contracts, or other arrangements, to support an organization that administers a centralized child-development and national-assessment program leading to recognized credentials for early-childhood personnel. The funds must also support training for personnel serving limited-English-proficient children and families, including English acquisition; serving children found abused or neglected or receiving or referred for child-welfare services; helping children cope with community violence; recognizing common physical and mental-health problems for referral; serving children with disabilities and families; serving migrant and seasonal farmworker families; and serving homeless families.
(c) Outreach. The Secretary must create and carry out outreach to recruit and train professionals from varied backgrounds as Head Start teachers, so teachers reflect the communities where children live and children from varied backgrounds receive more quality services and instruction.
(d) Funds to agencies. Funds under section 9835(a)(2)(C)(i)(II)(aa) must be used for high-quality, sustained, intensive training and technical assistance. (1) They may support one or more of: (A) meeting or exceeding section 9836a(a)(1) standards; (B) enough trained, qualified staff skilled in serving children and families, including limited-English-proficient children and children with disabilities; (C) better management and delivery of services and systems, including direct training for expert consultants; (D) staff who promote language and literacy and children's skills linked to later reading, school success, and the skills, knowledge, abilities, development, and progress in section 9836a(a)(1)(B)(ii); (E) staff qualifications, career development, continuing skill improvement, and partnerships that place and support college students in Head Start centers; (F) learning environments suited to effective services; (G) staff training, child counseling, health, and other services for enrolled children, including children in crisis, experiencing chronic violence or homelessness, living with family substance abuse, or under age 3 when applicable; (H) classes or in-service programs for parenting, job, adult and family literacy (including financial literacy), or classroom-aide and bus-driver training; and (I) other activities identified in agency training plans as appropriate for improvement. (2) Funds must support stronger early language and literacy, high-quality oral-language skills, and literature-rich environments. In consultation with the State system when appropriate, each agency must ensure that every Head Start teacher receives ongoing literacy training, including suitable curricula and assessment; training to build vocabulary and phonological and phonemic awareness in developmentally, culturally, and linguistically suitable ways while supporting a child's native language; training to work with parents on language and early literacy at home; methods for limited-English-proficient children; methods for children with disabilities, including work with language-development specialists; and training tailored to each teacher's early-childhood literacy background. Funds under section 9835(a)(2)(C)(i) may not pay long-distance travel for training available locally or regionally, or substantially similar training.
(e) State-based training and technical assistance system. To deliver a State-based system, which may be a regional group of States, or a national system for migrant, seasonal, and Indian Head Start programs, the Secretary must provide high-quality, sustained, intensive help meeting local grantees' needs and improving capacity to meet or exceed section 9836a(a)(1) standards. The Secretary must: (1) contract in each State with one or more entities experienced in high-quality early-childhood programs, allowing a regional consortium^* when local grantees determine it is more appropriate; (2) ensure those entities consult local agencies, including Indian and migrant or seasonal agencies when appropriate, the State collaboration office, and the State Head Start Association; (3) encourage States to add other Federal, State, or local funds, not funds under this subchapter, to expand help to other early-childhood providers; (4) within 90 days after each fiscal year, report to the listed House and Senate committees on contract funding and activities; (5) periodically evaluate each State's service delivery for program-quality effects; and (6) ensure contracts address urban and rural grantees.
(f) Indoor air quality. The Secretary must consult appropriate Federal agencies and experts about air-quality issues affecting children's health and tell agencies about existing programs or combinations of programs that can improve indoor air quality.
(g) Career advancement partnership program. (1) From section 9835(a)(2)(C) funds, the Secretary may award demonstration grants lasting at least 5 years to historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities. Grants may: (A) increase associate, bachelor's, and graduate degrees in early-childhood education and related fields earned by agency staff, parents, and community members; (B) pay stipends and tuition, fee, and book costs for courses needed for degrees and teaching certification; (C) develop curricula for diverse children, including culturally relevant skills for African American children, linguistic skills for Hispanic-serving programs serving many limited-English-proficient children, and tribal culture and language for Indian children; (D) upgrade educational personnel to meet subsection (a) standards and improve services for populations served by these institutions; (E) provide technology-literacy programs for Indian agency staff and families; and (F) deliver the degree programs through technology, distance learning, or advanced technology when appropriate. (2) Using Department resources, the Secretary must provide technical help to grantees, including coordination with the White House Initiative on historically Black colleges and universities, and ensure the American Indian Programs Branch can administer the programs and assist Tribal Colleges and Universities. (3) An institution seeking a grant must apply with at least one Head Start agency enrolling large numbers from the relevant populations, in the form and with the information the Secretary requires, and certify a formal partnership for the paragraph (1) activities. (4) “Hispanic-serving institution,” “historically Black college or university,” and “Tribal College or University” have the meanings given in the cited sections of title 20. (5) A student receiving assistance must teach in a center-based Head Start program for as long as the period of assistance, or repay the assistance.