Head Start Transportation Standards Take Effect, Parent Transportation Cannot Be Counted Toward Match

By R. Brian Tipton, Esq., Sasser, Bolton & Sefton, P.C.

         The Head Start transportation standard requiring that Head Start grantees providing transportation services use either school buses or allowable alternate vehicles, finally took effect on June 24, 2007.(1) This standard provides that “each agency providing transportation
services must ensure that children enrolled in its program are transported in school buses or allowable alternate vehicles that are equipped for use of height- and weight-appropriate child restraint systems, and that have reverse beepers.”(2) Originally, this requirement was to have taken effect in 2006. Prior regulatory and legislative amendments, though, repeatedly delayed the requirement’s effective date.

        Buried in Public Law 110-28, which was enacted on May 25, 2007, is a provision making the school bus or allowable alternate vehicles requirement effective 30 days after the law’s enactment.
Public Law 110-28 also provides for a third permissible type of vehicle for the transportation of Head Start children. Until the completion of a review and revision of standards for allowable
alternate vehicles, Head Start grantees may use vehicles that do not meet the seat spacing requirements and supporting seat requirements for compartmentalization for allowable alternate vehicles, provided that the vehicles meet all other requirements for allowable alternate
vehicles.

       On June 27, 2007, the Office of Head Start issued a program instruction (ACF-PI-HS-07-04) explaining the impact of Public Law 110-28.3 The program instruction also announces a change, related to the newly effective transportation requirements, in the treatment of the value of parent transportation as an in-kind match. According to the program instruction, “costs incurred by parents in transporting their children to and from a Head Start center will no longer be able to be counted as non-federal share,” even though the regulations apply only to Head Start grantees that provide transportation. Indeed, the program instruction concedes that the regulations do not require grantees to provide transportation and do not prohibit parents from transporting their children to and from Head Start centers. Because many grantees have used the value of parent transportation to meet their matching requirements, the program instruction permits regional offices to consider granting one-year, partial waivers of the non-federal share requirement for grantees“significantly impacted” by this change.

1 45 C.F.R. § 1310.12.

2 Id.

3 The program instruction is available online at
http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/Program%20Design%20and%20Manag
ement/Head%20Start%20Requirements/PIs/2007/resour_pri_00113_062
607.html