Appendix A PROGRAM INFORMATION PACKAGES

APPENDIX A-1

FACES 2019 program INFORMATION PACKAGE

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APPENDIX A-1.a

OFFICE OF HEAD START MEMORANDUM
(pROGRAMS FOR CHILD-LEVEL DATA COLLECTION, regions I–X)

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TO: [PROGRAM DIRECTOR NAME]

FROM: Ann Linehan, Acting Director, Office of Head Start

DATE: [Date]

RE: Program Director Notification

I am writing to let you know your Head Start program has been selected to participate in an important study, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, known as FACES 2019. It is designed to gather information about the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families served by Head Start and to observe the relationships among family and program characteristics, classroom quality, and school readiness. The programs, children, and families chosen for previous rounds of FACES have, by participating, provided a tremendous service to all children and families of Head Start. Since 1997, the information collected has taught us a great deal about Head Start classrooms, staff, families, and children. It is very important to the Office of Head Start and the Administration for Children and Families to continue to gather information about the children and families who attend Head Start and about the programs that serve them.

The new round of FACES (FACES 2019) is currently being launched, with a nationally representative sample of approximately 180 different Head Start programs. Your program was randomly selected to be one of the study sites for this important effort with implications for the improvement of Head Start. Programs that participated in the first six rounds of FACES—in 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2014—found the experience to be a positive one, without undue intrusion on program operations. FACES 2019 is again being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, with assistance from Juarez and Associates and Educational Testing Service.

Of the 180 Head Start programs selected for study, 60 programs will be selected for a special study that involves the selection of approximately 2,400 3- and 4-year old Head Start children and their families. Your program has been randomly selected as one of the 60 sites to provide information about the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families served by Head Start. Out of your entire program, only about four classrooms will be included in the study. As part of this effort, during a one-week visit in fall 2019 and spring 2020, Mathematica data collectors will work with teachers, parents, and children. Approximately 40 children in your program will be assessed, their parents will be surveyed, and about four teachers will be asked to complete, on their own time, ratings of the study children. Participants will receive a gift or gift card. In spring 2020 and again in spring 2022, program directors, center directors, and teachers will be surveyed, and selected classrooms will be observed.

All information collected during the course of FACES 2019 will be kept private to the extent permitted by law and will not be shared with anyone outside the research team, including your program staff or parents. Programs, Head Start staff, children, and families will never be identified by name in any reports of the study’s findings. A member of Mathematica’s research staff will call you soon to explain the study in more detail and answer any questions you have. On behalf of the Office of Head Start, I would like to thank you in advance for agreeing to participate in this extremely important study of our programs. If you have any concerns regarding your program’s participation in the study, please contact the study project officer, Mary Mueggenborg (202-401-5689), at the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services.

APPENDIX A-1.A

OFFICE OF HEAD START MEMORANDUM
(pROGRAMS FOR PROGRAM AND CLASSROOM DATA COLLECTION ONLY, regions i–x)

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T O: [PROGRAM DIRECTOR NAME]

FROM: Ann Linehan, Acting Director, Office of Head Start

DATE: [DATE]

RE: Program Director Notification

I am writing to let you know your Head Start program has been selected to participate in an important study, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, known as FACES 2019. It is designed to gather information about the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families served by Head Start and to observe the relationships among family and program characteristics, classroom quality, and school readiness. The programs, children, and families chosen for previous rounds of FACES have, by participating, provided a tremendous service to all children and families of Head Start. Since 1997, the information collected has taught us a great deal about Head Start classrooms, staff, families, and children. It is very important to the Office of Head Start and the Administration for Children and Families to continue to gather information about the children and families who attend Head Start and about the programs that serve them.

The new round of FACES (FACES 2019) is currently being launched, with a nationally representative sample of approximately 180 different Head Start programs. Your program was randomly selected to be one of the study sites for this important effort with implications for the continuation and improvement of Head Start. Programs that participated in the first six rounds of FACES—in 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2014—found the experience to be a positive one, without undue intrusion on program operations. FACES 2019 is again being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, with assistance from Juarez and Associates and Educational Testing Service.

During a one-week visit in spring 2020 and spring 2022, selected classrooms will be observed by a visiting team of professional Mathematica data collectors. Out of your entire program, only about four classrooms will be included in the study. Gifts will be given to each participating classroom. Program and center directors and teachers will be surveyed. All information collected during the course of FACES 2019 will be kept private to the extent permitted by law and will not be shared with anyone outside the research team, including your program staff or parents. Programs, Head Start staff, and families will never be identified by name in any reports of the study’s findings.

A member of Mathematica’s research staff will call you soon to explain the study in more detail and answer any questions you have. On behalf of the Office of Head Start, I would like to thank you in advance for agreeing to participate in this extremely important study of our programs. If you have any concerns regarding your program’s participation in the study, please contact the study project officer, Mary Mueggenborg (202-401-5689), at the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services.

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APPENDIX A-1.b

MATHEMATICA PROJECT DIRECTOR MEMORANDUM
(PROGRAMS FOR CHILD-LEVEL DATA COLLECTION, regions i–x)

This page has been left blank for double-sided copying.

1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002-4221

Telephone (202) 484-9220

Fax (202) 863-1763

www.mathematica-mpr.com

TO: [PROGRAM DIRECTOR NAME]

FROM: Lizabeth Malone, Project Director DATE: [DATE]

SUBJECT: Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2019

As indicated by the attached memo from Ann Linehan, acting director of the Office of Head Start (OHS), your program has been selected to participate in an important study—the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, also known as FACES 2019. Mathematica Policy Research is conducting FACES 2019 under contract with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). ACF launched the first FACES study in 1997 to obtain information about the children and families served by Head Start. FACES has collected data from six nationally representative cohorts in 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2014, and information from FACES has been disseminated, through a series of reports, to ACF, OHS, Congress, and the early childhood research community. The information gathered and analyzed through FACES describes the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families served by Head Start. FACES has also been designed to observe the relationships among family and program characteristics, classroom quality, and school readiness.

Mathematica will not judge or report on the performance of individual programs, staff, or children. We are a policy research firm with extensive experience conducting Head Start and other early childhood research. The information provided by participants from your program will be combined with information from all other FACES 2019 programs and individuals and summarized in descriptive reports. The names and identities of the participating programs, staff, children, and families will never be shared in any of the reports or other study documents.

Your program was selected to participate in FACES 2019 through a random process. Participation is voluntary, but we ask that you strongly consider taking part in this study. The ability of study findings to accurately represent the population of children and families served by Head Start depends on randomly selected programs such as yours participating. We will randomly select approximately two classrooms from each of two centers in your program, and then we will randomly select a sample of about 24 children from each center. Working with staff from your program, we will invite the families of these children to participate in FACES 2019. All participating parents, children, and classrooms will receive a gift or gift card for participating.

A member of Mathematica’s FACES study staff will call you in the next two weeks to discuss your program’s willingness to participate in this study and to answer any questions you have. To give you a better sense of what your participation will entail, this letter describes activities we would like to complete during our visit to your program, and the process we will follow to work with you to schedule and prepare for the visit.

Site Data Collection Activities

FACES 2019 involves collecting data at three points in time: fall 2019, spring 2020, and spring 2022. In fall 2019 and spring 2020, Mathematica staff will spend about one week at your program to administer an assessment to each selected child whose parents have agreed to let him/her participate. In 2019 and 2020, each participating child’s parent or guardian will be invited to complete a survey on the web or by phone, whichever the parent finds most convenient. We will also ask the child’s classroom teacher to complete a report about the child. In spring 2020, you, the center directors, and teachers will be asked to complete a survey on the web. Also in spring 2020, research staff will observe selected classrooms. Each of the observations will take about three hours. No data collection is planned for the 2020–2021 program year; however, in spring 2022, we will conduct classroom observations and staff surveys only.

In the box below, we provide an overview of the activities that will take place during the site visit as well as an estimate of how much time we will need to complete each one. We have also enclosed a FACES 2019 fact sheet with additional information about the study.

Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 Study Visit Activities

Child assessment battery. During the visit, we will administer a 45-minute assessment to approximately 40 children in your program. The assessment will measure important knowledge, skills, and behaviors that are typical of Head Start children. The assessments are administered individually to each child by a trained Mathematica staff member.

Teacher reports of children. Teachers will complete short checklists about each participating child’s cognitive and social development. These can be completed in about 10 minutes and are available on the web or on paper.

Parent survey. We will invite the parent or guardian of each participating child to complete a 25-minute survey by telephone with a Mathematica interviewer or on the web. This survey will focus on parent and child activities, experiences with community agencies, health care, and parents’ feelings and attitudes about themselves.

Spring 2020 and Spring 2022 Study Visit Activities

Classroom observations. Study team members will observe the classrooms of participating children to measure classroom practices and instructional content. Each observation will take about three hours.

Individual staff surveys. Program directors, center directors, and teachers of participating children will be asked to complete surveys via the web or on paper about their employment and educational background, program goals and philosophy, and curriculum and classroom activities.

Next Steps in Planning the Visit

Agreement to participate. The FACES liaison, a member of Mathematica’s staff responsible for working with your program, will contact you soon to answer any questions you have about the study and to begin planning the visit to your program. During that conversation, he or she will discuss the process for selecting centers to participate in the study. The liaison will also ask you to identify someone from your program to serve as the on-site coordinator (OSC). That person will work with Mathematica’s FACES liaison to help organize the data collection.

The role of an OSC. The OSC will help us put together the information we need to select our sample and schedule visits to Head Start centers. If the randomly selected centers are not close to each other, we may ask you to identify two coordinators. We suggest that you identify a backup OSC, regardless of the size of your program. The OSC will receive an honorarium of $500 for helping us in fall 2019. If there are two coordinators, each will receive $250. The honorarium amounts for spring 2020 and spring 2022 are $250. If you wish, this honorarium can be made directly to the program.

Selecting centers and classrooms. As a first step in selecting centers and classrooms, we will ask you during our call for the following information:

• The program option(s) you offer (full day, part day, center based, and home based)

• The names and zip codes of your centers

• Your best estimate of the number of classrooms in each of the centers in your program

• Your best estimate for the number of Head Start children you will serve at each of the centers in your program in fall 2019

The next step in the process involves randomly selecting centers based on the information you provided. An average of two centers per program will be selected. As a courtesy, just before data collection we will send the center director a letter informing him/her of its selection and describing participation in the study.

Approximately two classrooms per center will be randomly selected. This process will be facilitated by a field enrollment specialist who will visit each center a few weeks before the start of fall data collection. The field enrollment specialist visit will last approximately two to three days per center. We will ask the OSC to give the field enrollment specialist a list of the classrooms and the number of children in each. If a center has two or fewer classrooms, we will include all of them.

Selecting children. A multistep process is used to select the children who will participate in the study. This will also require the assistance of the OSC and center staff. After classrooms have been selected for the sample, the field enrollment specialist will ask the OSC to provide a list of all Head Start children in the selected classrooms. Approximately 12 children will be randomly selected from the rosters of each classroom and invited to participate in the study.

Obtaining consent. Participation is voluntary, and parents will decide whether or not to give permission for their child to participate. Once children have been chosen for the sample, Mathematica will work with the OSC to gain parental/guardian consent. While the field enrollment specialist is still on site, he or she will distribute informational materials to selected families. The field enrollment specialist will be available to discuss the study in person with parents and to answer any questions that they may have.

Scheduling the visit. We hope to conduct all of our assessments at your program within a five-day time frame. As a first step in scheduling, we would like to discuss your program’s operating schedule and find a time that is most convenient to your program. We will make every effort to conduct the visit at a convenient time for your program.

We are looking forward to visiting your program. Your participation will be important for helping the Office of Head Start assess how well the system is fostering children’s school readiness. If you have questions about the site visit before we call you, please contact [FACES LIAISON] at Mathematica at [PHONE] or [EMAIL].

APPENDIX A-1.b

MATHEMATICA PROJECT DIRECTOR MEMORANDUM
(PROGRAMS FOR PROGRAM AND CLASSROOM DATA COLLECTION ONLY, regions i–x)

This page has been left blank for double-sided copying.

1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002-4221

Telephone (202) 484-9220

Fax (202) 863-1763

www.mathematica-mpr.com

TO: [HEAD START PROGRAM DIRECTOR NAME]

FROM: Lizabeth Malone, Project Director DATE: [DATE]

SUBJECT: Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2019

As indicated by the attached memo from Ann Linehan, acting director of the Office of Head Start, your program has been selected to participate in an important study—the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, also known as FACES 2019. Mathematica Policy Research is conducting FACES 2019 under contract with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). ACF launched the first FACES study in 1997 to obtain information about the children and families served by Head Start. FACES has collected data from six nationally representative cohorts in 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2014, and information from FACES has been disseminated through a series of reports to ACF, OHS, Congress, and the early childhood research community. The information gathered and analyzed through FACES describes the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families served by Head Start. FACES has also been designed to observe the relationships among family and program characteristics, classroom quality, and school readiness.

Mathematica will not judge or report on the performance of individual programs, staff, or children. We are a policy research firm with extensive experience conducting Head Start and other early childhood research. The information provided by participants from your program will be combined with information from all other FACES 2019 programs and individuals and summarized in descriptive reports. The names and identities of the participating programs, staff, children, and families will never be shared in any of the reports or other study documents.

Your program was selected to participate in FACES 2019 through a random process. Participation is voluntary, but we ask that you strongly consider taking part in this study. The ability of study findings to accurately represent the population of children and families served by Head Start depends on randomly selected programs such as yours participating. We will randomly select approximately two classrooms from each of two centers in your program. All participating classrooms will receive a gift for participating.

A member of Mathematica’s FACES study staff will call you in the next two weeks to discuss your program’s willingness to participate in this study and to answer any questions you have. To give you a better sense of what your participation will entail, this letter describes activities we would like to complete during our visit to your program, and the process we will follow to work with you to schedule and prepare for the visit.

In the box below, we provide an overview of the activities that will take place during the site visit as well as an estimate of how much time we will need to complete each one. We have also enclosed a FACES 2019 fact sheet with additional information about the study.

Spring 2020 and Spring 2022 Study Visit Activities

Classroom observations. Study team members will observe the classrooms of participating children to measure classroom practices and instructional content. Each observation will take about three hours.

Individual staff surveys. Program directors, center directors, and teachers of participating children will be asked to complete surveys via the web or on paper about their employment and educational background, program goals and philosophy, and curriculum and classroom activities.

Next Steps in Planning the Visit

Agreement to participate. The FACES liaison, a member of Mathematica’s staff responsible for working with your program, will contact you soon to answer any questions you have about the study and to begin planning the visit to your program. During that conversation, he or she will discuss the process for selecting centers to participate in the study. The liaison will also ask you to identify someone from your program to serve as the on-site coordinator (OSC). That person will work with Mathematica’s FACES liaison to help organize the data collection.

The role of an OSC. The OSC will help us put together the information we need to select our sample and schedule visits to Head Start centers. If the randomly selected centers are not close to each other, we may ask you to identify two coordinators. We suggest that you identify a backup OSC, regardless of the size of your program. The OSC will receive an honorarium of $250 for helping us. If there are two coordinators, each will receive $125. The honorarium amount for spring 2022 is also $250. If you wish, this honorarium can be made directly to the program.

Selecting centers and classrooms. As a first step in selecting centers and classrooms, we will ask you during our call for the following information:

• The program option(s) you offer (full day, part day, center based, and home based)

• The names and zip codes of your centers

• Your best estimate of the number of classrooms in each of the centers in your program

The next step in the process involves randomly selecting centers based on the information you provided. Two centers per program will be selected. As a courtesy, just before data collection we will send the center director a letter describing the study and the center’s participation in it.

Approximately two classrooms per center will be randomly selected. We will ask the OSC to give the FACES liaison a list of its classrooms and the number of children in each. If a center has two or fewer classrooms, we will include all of them.

Scheduling the visit. We hope to conduct all of our observations at your program within a five-day time frame. As a first step in scheduling, we would like to discuss your program’s operating schedule and find a time that is most convenient to your program. We will make every effort to conduct the visit at a convenient time for your program.

We are looking forward to visiting your program. Your participation will be important for helping the Office of Head Start assess how well the system is fostering children’s school readiness. If you have questions about the site visit before we call you, please contact [FACES LIAISON] at Mathematica at [PHONE] or [EMAIL].

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APPENDIX A-1.c

FACES 2019 FACT SHEET (programs for child-level DATA COLLection, regions i–x)

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Since its founding more than five decades ago, Head Start has served as the nation’s premier federally funded early childhood intervention to promote school readiness. Focusing on children—often from families engendering multiple risks—before they begin formal schooling, Head Start has served as a natural national laboratory for a wide range of basic prevention and early intervention research.¹ The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), first launched in 1997 as a periodic, longitudinal study of program performance, remains Head Start’s flagship research initiative. FACES is designed to be a reliable source of data for describing the experiences of Head Start children and their families. This national study is sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families.

STUDY TEAM

The study is being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, a respected, independent policy research organization whose studies of education initiatives and other programs have been used to inform national policymakers for more than 40 years. Researchers from Juarez and Associates and Educational Testing Service are assisting Mathematica in FACES 2019.

Our study design will ensure high quality and timely FACES data to provide a valuable profile of the Head Start program and its participants. We are committed to translating research findings into formats that policymakers and programs can use.

Selecting Programs

The study includes 180 Head Start programs from around the country. The programs are selected from all eligible Head Start programs listed on the Head Start Program Information Report database for program year 2017–2018. All programs will participate in classroom- and staff-level data collection. Sixty of the 180 programs will be selected for child-level data collection.

Selecting Children

We will work closely with staff at these programs to randomly select children and families for the study. Random selection ensures that all 3- and 4-year-old children in selected programs will have a chance to be part of the study, and that the findings from the study can be generalized to the full population of children and families served by FACES. Mathematica staff will visit each program in fall 2019 to select a sample of two to four classrooms per center and about 12 children per classroom. These children and their families will be invited to participate in the study. Nationwide, approximately 2,400 children from the 180 programs will be included in the study.

Collecting Information

Mathematica staff will visit participating programs to gather study data. The study team will spend about one week—in both fall 2019 and spring 2020—to assess each child’s cognitive and social-emotional development. We will also ask their teachers to complete a brief form about each child’s cognitive and social-emotional development. The parent or guardian of participating children will be invited to participate in a survey. In spring 2020 and spring 2022, staff will observe each of the study classrooms, and Head Start staff will be surveyed in all 180 programs.

On-Site Assistance

We will establish a cooperative partnership with an on-site coordinator (OSC) from each Head Start program, identified by the program director. We will work with the OSC to schedule program visits and to help get consent from families for their children to participate in the study. Mathematica staff will work with the OSC to create a document that details the logistics of our program visit.

Privacy

Mathematica is committed to respecting and protecting the privacy of respondents and the data entrusted to us. Having conducted many studies involving disadvantaged populations, including the three most recent rounds of FACES, Mathematica has vast experience implementing stringent security procedures. Study results will be reported only in group form; we will not present data on child performance by teacher, by class, or by program. In this way, the privacy of children and families, teachers, and programs, will be carefully guarded. At the beginning of the study, we will tell participants about the study and our privacy policies. If a parent signs a form allowing his/her child to participate in the study, he or she will also have the right to remove the child from the study. Mathematica senior project staff will be responsible for making sure that the study team members understand the necessity of maintaining strict privacy of the information they collect. All staff involved with the study will sign privacy pledges. All field staff visiting centers will have undergone a comprehensive security review and background check.

The privacy of participants will be protected when study findings are shared. At the conclusion of the study, the data collected will be put into files that will be made available to qualified researchers. Researchers will only be granted access to the data if they agree to abide by a set of conditions intended to ensure that the privacy of participating children, families, and programs are protected, and that the data are used in a responsible way.

Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: The referenced collection of information is voluntary. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB control number for the described collection is 0970-0151 and it expires XX/XX/XXXX.

APPENDIX A-1.C

FACES 2019 FACT SHEET (PROGRAMS for PROGRAM AND CLASSROOM DATA COLLECTION ONLY, REGIONS I–X)

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H
ead Start Family and Child Experiences
Survey (FACES) 2019

Since its founding more than five decades ago, Head Start has served as the nation’s premier federally funded early childhood intervention to promote school readiness. Focusing on children—often from families engendering multiple risks—before they begin formal schooling, Head Start has served as a natural national laboratory for a wide range of basic prevention and early intervention research.² The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), first launched in 1997 as a periodic, longitudinal study of program performance, remains Head Start’s flagship research initiative. FACES is designed to be a reliable source of data for describing the experiences of Head Start children and their families. FACES 2019 includes data collected during spring 2020 and spring 2022. This national study is sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families.

The Research Team

The study is being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, a respected, independent policy research organization whose studies of education initiatives and other programs have been used to inform national policymakers for more than 40 years. Researchers from Juarez and Associates and Educational Testing Service are assisting Mathematica in FACES 2019.

Our study design will ensure high quality and timely FACES data to provide a valuable profile of the Head Start program and its participants. We are committed to translating research findings into formats that policymakers and programs can use.

Selecting Programs

The study includes 180 Head Start programs from around the country. The programs are selected from all eligible Head Start programs listed on the Head Start Program Information Report database for program year 2017–2018. All programs will participate in classroom- and staff-level data collection.

Collecting Information

A team of Mathematica staff will visit the programs and collect the data for this study in spring 2020 and spring 2022. These staff will observe each of the study classrooms, and Head Start staff will be surveyed in all 180 programs.

On-Site Assistance

We will establish a cooperative partnership with an on-site coordinator (OSC) from each Head Start program. We will ask the OSC to help schedule site visits. Mathematica staff will work with the OSC to create a document that details the logistics of our program visit.

Privacy

Mathematica is committed to respecting and protecting the privacy of respondents and the data entrusted to us. Having conducted many studies involving disadvantaged populations, including the three most recent rounds of FACES, Mathematica has vast experience implementing stringent security procedures. Study results will be reported only in group form. In this way, the privacy of study participants will be carefully guarded. At the beginning of the study, we will tell participants about the study and our privacy policies. Mathematica senior project staff will be responsible for making sure study staff understand the necessity of maintaining strict privacy of the information they collect. All staff involved with the study will sign privacy pledges. All field staff visiting centers will have undergone a comprehensive security review and background check.

The privacy of participants will be protected when study findings are shared. At the conclu­sion of the study, the data collected will be put into files that will be made available to qualified researchers. Researchers will only be granted access to the data if they agree to abide by a set of conditions intended to ensure that the privacy of participating programs are protected, that the data are used in a responsible way.

To Find Out More

Contact: Dr. Lizabeth Malone, the project director, at Mathematica Policy Research,
(202) 264-3488, [email protected]. More information about FACES can be found by accessing the Administration for Children and Families FACES website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/faces.

Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: The referenced collection of information is voluntary. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB control number for the described collection is 0970-0151 and it expires XX/XX/XXXX.

APPENDIX A-1.D

LETTER TO ON-SITE COORDINATOR
(PROGRAMS FOR CHILD-LEVEL DATA COLLECTION, REGIONS I–X)

This page has been left blank for double-sided copying.

1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002-4221

Telephone (202) 484-9220

Fax (202) 863-1763

www.mathematica-mpr.com

[DATE]

Dear [OSC]:

Thank you for agreeing to help us conduct the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2019. The Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, an independent policy research organization, to conduct the study. FACES will provide details about the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families served by Head Start. It will also provide observations about the relationships among family and program characteristics, classroom quality, and school readiness.

Your program director has chosen you to help us put together the information we need to select our sample of children and schedule visits to Head Start centers in your program. FACES 2019 involves collecting data at three points in time: fall 2019, spring 2020, and spring 2022.

• In fall 2019 and spring 2020, Mathematica study staff will spend about one week at your program to administer a child assessment battery to each selected child whose parents have agreed to let him/her participate. Each participating child’s parent or guardian will be invited to complete a survey on the web or by phone, whichever the parent finds most convenient. We will also ask the child’s classroom teacher to complete a brief form about the cognitive and social development of each child.

• In spring 2020, the program and center directors and the teachers of the children who are participating will be asked to complete a survey on the web (or on paper if they prefer). Mathematica staff will also observe selected classrooms. Each of the observations will take about three hours.

• In spring 2022, we will reselect classrooms in your program’s selected centers and conduct classroom observations and staff surveys.

Your role is important to the success of the study and will require that you spend some time outside of your regular duties helping us. [IF HONORARIUM TO SITE: In recognition of this effort, at the discretion of your program director, we will distribute $500 for the fall 2019 round of data collection. You will receive an additional $250 for helping us plan our data collection visit in the spring.]

This letter and the attached FACES fact sheet provide details on the study activities. The following are the core activities for which we will need your help and an approximate schedule for each:

Sample Selection Activities

1. Center selection. In fall 2019, two centers will be randomly selected to participate in FACES. If a program has only two centers, both will be included in the study.

2. Classroom selection. Approximately two classrooms will be randomly selected in each center. If a center has two or fewer classrooms, we will include all of them. A Mathematica field enrollment specialist will visit your program about three weeks before our fall data collection begins. The visit will last approximately two to three days per center. The field enrollment specialist will ask you to provide a list of all classrooms in each selected center.

3. Child selection. After classrooms have been chosen, children will be randomly selected for the study. The field enrollment specialist will ask for a list of the names, dates of birth, and enrollment date into preschool Head Start for all children in the selected classrooms. We will select approximately 12 children per classroom and will invite these children and their families to participate.

4. Parent/guardian consent (permission). Once children have been selected, Mathematica will work with you and the teachers to request parental consent. While the field enrollment specialist is still on site, he or she will distribute informational materials to the families. The field enrollment specialist will be available to discuss the study in person with teachers and parents. Only children whose parents/guardians give consent for their participation will be included in the assessments and surveys.

Data Collection Activities

Fall 2019 and Spring 2020

1. Administer assessments to children in the study. A trained member of Mathematica’s team will administer a 45-minute assessment to each child. The assessments are designed to measure important school readiness skills identified by Head Start’s Early Learning Outcomes Framework, including language and number skills. Assessments will be conducted over the course of up to five days. We will work with you to arrange the assessment schedule. Children will receive a book valued at $10.

2. Ask classroom teachers to complete reports on each child. Teachers will be asked to complete short checklists for each selected child in their classroom. Each will take 10 minutes and can be completed on the web or on paper. Teachers are expected to complete the checklists on their own time and will receive $10 for each checklist they complete.

3. Survey parents or guardians. We will survey a parent or guardian for each study child—by web or over the telephone (whichever the parent finds more convenient). Parents will receive $30 for completing each survey.

Spring 2020 and Spring 2022

1. Staff surveys. The program director, center directors, and teachers of each selected classroom will be asked to complete a survey. These surveys will collect background information and information on professional experience, program practices, and classroom activities.

2. Conduct classroom observations. Mathematica staff will observe selected classrooms to collect information on classroom practices and instructional content. Each observation will take approximately three hours. We will work with you to schedule them. The center staff and teachers should make no special preparations for them. Each classroom will receive a gift for participating.

I will call you in the next few days to discuss the study and answer any questions you have. You may also contact me at [xxx-xxx-xxxx] or [EMAIL]. We very much appreciate your support and cooperation with this important study, and we welcome any input you would like to provide. More information about FACES can be found by accessing the Administration for Children and Families FACES website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/faces.

Sincerely,

[FACES Liaison]

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APPENDIX A-1.d

LETTER TO ON-SITE COORDINATOR
(PROGRAMS FOR PROGRAM AND CLASSROOM DATA COLLECTION ONLY, REGIONS I–X)

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1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002-4221

Telephone (202) 484-9220

Fax (202) 863-1763

www.mathematica-mpr.com

[DATE]

Dear [OSC]:

Thank you for agreeing to help us conduct the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2019. The Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, an independent policy research organization, to conduct the study. FACES will provide details about the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families served by Head Start. It will also provide information about the relationships among family and program characteristics, classroom quality, and school readiness.

Your program director has chosen you to help put together the information we need to select our sample of classrooms and schedule visits to Head Start centers in your program. FACES 2019 involves collecting data at two points in time: spring 2020 and spring 2022. At both points, directors and teachers will be asked to complete a brief survey on the web or on paper, and research staff will conduct classroom observations.

Your role is important to the success of the study and will require that you spend some time outside of your regular duties helping us. In recognition of this effort, at the discretion of your program director, we will distribute $250 for the spring 2020 round of data collection. You will also receive an additional $250 for the spring 2022 round of data collection.

This letter and the attached FACES fact sheet provide details on the study activities. The following are the core activities for which we will need your help and an approximate schedule for each:

Sample Selection Activities

1. Center selection. In spring 2020, two centers in your program will be randomly selected to participate in FACES. If a program has only two centers, both will be included in the study.

2. Classroom selection. Two classrooms will be randomly selected in each center. If a center has only one or two classrooms, we will include all classrooms. We will ask you to provide a list of all classrooms in your center.

Data Collection Activities

1. Staff surveys. The program director, center directors, and teachers of each selected classroom will be asked to complete a survey. These surveys will collect background information and information on professional experience, program practices, and classroom activities.

2. Conduct classroom observations. Mathematica staff will observe selected classrooms to collect information on classroom practices and instructional content. Each observation will take approximately three hours. We will work with you to schedule the observations. The center staff and teachers should make no special preparations for them. Each classroom will receive a gift for participating.

I will call you in the next few days to discuss the study and answer any questions you have. You may also contact me at [xxx-xxx-xxxx] or [EMAIL]. We very much appreciate your support and cooperation with this important study, and welcome any input you would like to provide. More information about FACES can be found by accessing the Administration for Children and Families FACES website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/faces.

Sincerely,

[FACES Liaison]

APPENDIX A-1.E

LETTER TO CENTER DIRECTOR
(PROGRAMS FOR CHILD-LEVEL DATA COLLECTION, REGIONS I–X)

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1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002-4221

Telephone (202) 484-9220

Fax (202) 863-1763

www.mathematica-mpr.com

[DATE]

Dear [Center Director]:

Thank you for agreeing to help us conduct the Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2019. The Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, an independent policy research organization, to conduct the study, which will focus on children’s development, family involvement, and program quality to identify strategies for improving the effectiveness of Head Start.

To accomplish these goals, we will be working with an on-site coordinator (OSC) enlisted by the program director. The OSC selected by your program director is [FILL OSC NAME]. The OSC will help coordinate activities between your center and our staff and will facilitate the work of the Mathematica team assigned to collect the data for the study.

FACES 2019 involves collecting data at three points in time: fall 2019, spring 2020, and spring 2022.

• In fall 2019 and spring 2020, we will administer a child assessment battery to children in the study, and their parents will be surveyed. Teachers from each selected class will be asked to complete brief forms about the social and emotional development of each child.

• In spring 2020, we will also observe the selected classrooms and ask the program director, the center directors, and teachers of the selected classrooms to complete surveys.

• In spring 2022, we will reselect classrooms in your program’s selected centers and conduct classroom observations and staff surveys.

Sample Selection Activities

1. Classroom selection. Approximately two classrooms will be randomly selected in your center. If your center has two or fewer classrooms, we will include all of them. A Mathematica field enrollment specialist will visit your center about three weeks before our fall data collection begins. The field enrollment specialist visit will last approximately two to three days. During that visit, the field enrollment specialist will ask you to provide a list of all classrooms in your center.

2. Child selection. After classrooms have been chosen, children will be randomly selected for the study. The field enrollment specialist will ask for a list of names, dates of birth, and enrollment date into preschool Head Start for all children in the selected classrooms. We will invite these children and their families to participate.

3. Parent/guardian consent (permission). Once children have been selected, Mathematica will work with the OSC and the teachers to gain parental consent for the children to participate in the study. While the field enrollment specialist is still on site, he or she will distribute informational materials to the families. The field enrollment specialist will be available to discuss the study in person with teachers and parents. Only children whose parents/guardians give consent for their participation will be included in the assessments and surveys.

Data Collection Activities

Fall 2019 and Spring 2020

1. Administer assessments to children in the study. A trained member of Mathematica’s team will give a 45-minute assessment to each child. The assessments are designed to measure important school readiness skills identified by Head Start’s Early Learning Outcomes Framework, including language and number skills. Assessments will be completed over the course of several days. Children will receive a book valued at $10.

2. Ask classroom teachers to complete reports on each child. Teachers will be asked to complete short checklists for each selected child in their classroom. Each will take 10 minutes and can be completed on the web or on paper. Teachers are expected to complete the checklists on their own time and will receive $10 for each checklist they complete.

3. Survey parents or guardians. We will survey a parent or guardian for each study child—via the web or over the telephone (whichever the parent finds more convenient). Parents will receive $30 for completing each survey.

Spring 2020 and Spring 2022

1. Staff surveys. The program director, center directors, and teachers of each selected classroom will be asked to complete a survey. These surveys will collect background information as well as information on professional experience, program practices, and classroom activities.

2. Conduct classroom observations. Mathematica staff will observe selected classrooms to collect information on classroom practices and instructional content. Each observation will take approximately three hours. We will work with the OSC to schedule them. The center staff and teachers should make no special preparations for them. Each classroom will receive a gift for participating.

You may contact me at [xxx-xxx-xxxx] or [EMAIL] if you have questions about the study or your center’s participation. We very much appreciate your support and cooperation with this important study, and welcome any input you would like to provide. More information about FACES can be found by accessing the Administration of Children and Families FACES website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/faces.

Sincerely,

[FACES liaison]

APPENDIX A-1.E

LETTER TO CENTER DIRECTOR
(PROGRAMS FOR PROGRAM AND CLASSROOM DATA COLLECTION ONLY, REGIONS I–X)

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1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002-4221

Telephone (202) 484-9220

Fax (202) 863-1763

www.mathematica-mpr.com

[DATE]

Dear [Center Director]:

Thank you for agreeing to help us conduct the Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2019. The Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, an independent policy research organization, to conduct the study, which will focus on children’s development, family involvement, and program quality to identify strategies for improving the effectiveness of Head Start.

To accomplish these goals, we will be working with an on-site coordinator (OSC) enlisted by the program director. The OSC selected by your program director is [FILL OSC NAME]. The OSC will help coordinate activities between your center and our staff and will facilitate the work of the Mathematica team assigned to collect the data for the study.

FACES 2019 involves collecting data at two points in time: spring 2020 and spring 2022. At both points, directors and teachers will be asked to complete a brief survey on the web or on paper, and research staff will conduct classroom observations. Two classrooms will be randomly selected in your center. If your center has only one or two classrooms, we will include all classrooms. We will ask you to provide a list of all classrooms in your center.

Data Collection Activities

1. Staff surveys. The program director, center directors, and teachers of each selected classroom will be asked to complete a survey. These surveys will collect background information as well as information on professional experience, program practices, and classroom activities.

2. Conduct classroom observations. Mathematica staff will observe selected classrooms to collect information on classroom practices and instructional content. Each observation will take approximately three hours. We will work with the OSC to schedule them. The center staff and teachers should make no special preparations for them. Each classroom will receive a gift for participating.

You may contact me at [xxx-xxx-xxxx] or [EMAIL] if you have questions about the study or your center’s participation. We very much appreciate your support and cooperation with this important study, and welcome any input you would like to provide. More information about FACES can be found by accessing the Administration of Children and Families FACES website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/faces.

Sincerely,

[FACES liaison]

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APPENDIX A-2

AI/AN FACES 2019 PROGRAM INFORMATION PACKAGE

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APPENDIX A-2.A

AI/AN FACES 2019 OFFICE OF HEAD START PROGRAM DIRECTOR NOTIFICATION

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TO: [REGION XI PROGRAM DIRECTOR NAME]

FROM: Ann Linehan, Acting Director, Office of Head Start

DATE: [DATE]

RE: Program Director Notification

I am writing to let you know that your Head Start program has been selected to participate in an important study, the American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, known as AI/AN FACES. AI/AN FACES 2019 is a follow-up to AI/AN FACES 2015, which w as the first study to gather in-depth descriptive information about the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families served by Head Start programs in Region XI and to observe the relationships among family and program characteristics, classroom quality, and school readiness. We are very excited to be conducting a second round of AI/AN FACES in the 2019–2020 program year. The programs, children, and families chosen for the first round of AI/AN FACES in 2015 have, by participating, provided a tremendous service to all children and families of Head Start Region XI. It is very important to the Office of Head Start and the Administration for Children and Families to continue to gather information about the children and families who attend Head Start Region XI and about the programs that serve them.

The next round of AI/AN FACES will be launched in fall 2019, with a representative sample of 22 Region XI AI/AN Head Start programs. Your program was randomly selected to be one of the study sites for this important effort with implications for the improvement of Head Start. Programs in Region XI that participated in the first round of AI/AN FACES in 2015 found the experience to be a positive one, without undue intrusion on program operations. AI/AN FACES is being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, with assistance from Educational Testing Service.

An intensive and collaborative planning process involving Region XI AI/AN Head Start directors; Office of Head Start leadership; the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation; and tribal child development researchers from the Tribal Early Childhood Research Center started in 2012 for the first study and has been under way since 2017 for the current study. This process has informed the design of this study, keeping the needs and interest of Region XI AI/AN programs at the forefront. The AI/AN FACES Workgroup has worked to ensure that the study is responsive to the unique characteristics of Region XI and that tribal voices are at the forefront in deciding how the study will be designed and carried out, and in determining how the information from the study will be shared. The AI/AN FACES Workgroup will continue to guide the study as it moves from design to implementation, and later to analysis and reporting.

In fall 2019, a representative sample of approximately 800 3- and 4-year-old Head Start children and their families in Region XI will be asked to participate in AI/AN FACES. Your program has been randomly selected as one of the 22 Region XI AI/AN programs invited to provide information about the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families served by Region XI AI/AN Head Start. Should your program choose to participate and should your tribe approve this study, [IF 2+ CENTERS OR 1 CENTER, 4+ CLASS: four/IF 1 CENTER, <4 CLASS: two] randomly selected classrooms from your program will be included in the study. During a five- to seven-day visit in fall 2019, a study team from Mathematica will work with teachers, parents, and children in your program. Approximately [IF 2+ CENTERS OR 1 CENTER, 4+ CLASS: 40/IF 1 CENTER, <4 CLASS: 20] children in your program will be assessed in the areas of cognitive and social-emotional development. Even if your program participates, individual parent and child involvement is voluntary. The parents of participating children will be surveyed, and their teachers will be asked to complete, on their own time, ratings of the study children. Participants will receive a gift or gift card. In spring 2020, program directors, center directors, and teachers will be surveyed, and selected classrooms will be observed.

All information collected during the course of AI/AN FACES will be kept private to the extent permitted by law. Data that identifies study participants will not be shared with anyone outside the study team, including federal and local program staff or parents. Programs, tribal communities, Head Start staff, children, and families will never be identified by name in any reports of the study’s findings. A member of Mathematica’s staff and a member of the AI/AN FACES Workgroup will call you soon to explain the study in more detail and answer any questions you have. Should your program be interested in taking part in the study, they will also work with you to identify the steps necessary to secure the approval of your tribal leadership for your program to participate in the study.

On behalf of the Office of Head Start, I would like to thank you in advance for your consideration to participate in this extremely important study of our Region XI AI/AN programs. If you have any concerns regarding your program’s participation in the study, please contact the study project officer, Mary Mueggenborg (202-401-5689), at the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services.

APPENDIX A-2.B

AI/AN FACES 2019 MATHEMATICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR NOTIFICATION

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1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002-4221

Telephone (202) 484-9220

Fax (202) 863-1763

www.mathematica-mpr.com

TO: [REGION XI PROGRAM DIRECTOR NAME]

FROM: Lizabeth Malone, Project Director DATE: [DATE]

SUBJECT: American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES)

As the attached memo from Ann Linehan, acting director of the Office of Head Start (OHS) indicates, your program is one of 22 Region XI programs chosen to participate in an important upcoming study. The American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, also known as AI/AN FACES 2019, will be the second round of a national study of the children and families in Region XI. The first round of AI/AN FACES was conducted in 2015 as the first step in what will be an ongoing effort to give Region XI the same kind of rich descriptive information that has been available to Regions I–X for the last 21 years.

Data collection will begin in fall 2019. Mathematica Policy Research is conducting the study under contract with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and in collaboration with members of the AI/AN FACES Workgroup, which consists of Region XI Head Start directors, tribal community leaders, researchers, and federal officials. This collaboration has ensured that the design of the study is responsive to the needs of Region XI AI/AN Head Start, and that tribal voices have been at the forefront of decisions about how to carry out AI/AN FACES and share findings from the study.

Results of this study will not be used to judge or report on the performance of individual programs, staff, or children. Mathematica will combine the information that participants from your program provide with information from all other participating Region XI AI/AN programs and individuals, and we will summarize it in general, descriptive reports. We will never share in reports or other study documents the names and identities of the participating Region XI AI/AN Head Start programs, tribal communities, program staff, children, or families.

Your program was selected to participate in AI/AN FACES 2019 through a random process. Participation is voluntary, but we ask that you strongly consider taking part in this study. The ability of study findings to accurately represent the population of children and families who Region XI serves depends on randomly selected programs such as yours participating. We will randomly select up to two centers per participating program. If your program only has one center, we will ask that center to participate. Within each center, [IF 2+CENTER or 1 CENTER,<4 CLASS: two/IF 1 CENTER, 4+CLASS: four] Mathematica will randomly select four classrooms to participate, and then we will randomly select 13 children from each classroom. A study team from Mathematica will work with staff from your program to invite the families of the selected children to participate in AI/AN FACES 2019. All participating parents, children, and classrooms will receive a gift or gift card for participating in the study.

A member of Mathematica’s AI/AN FACES study staff and a representative from the AI/AN Workgroup will call you within two weeks to discuss your willingness to participate in this study and to answer any questions you have. During this call, we would also like to discuss the process for gaining approval from your tribe for your program to participate in the study. To give you a better sense of what your participation will entail, we describe in this letter the activities we would like to complete during our visit to your program, and the process we will follow to work with you to schedule and prepare for the visit.

Site data collection activities

If your program chooses to participate, data collection for AI/AN FACES 2019 will take place in fall 2019 and spring 2020. Mathematica staff will spend about one week at your program in the fall and in the spring to administer an assessment to each selected child whose parents have agreed to let him or her participate. Also in the fall and again in spring, we will ask each participating child’s parent or guardian to complete a survey on the web or by phone, whichever the parent prefers. We will also ask each selected child’s classroom teacher to complete a report about him or her. In spring 2020, we will ask you, the center directors, and the teachers of the children who participated to complete a survey on the web. Also in the spring of 2020, Mathematica staff will observe the selected classrooms. Each of the observations will take about three hours.

In the box below, we provide an overview of the activities that will take place during the site visit and an estimate of how much time we will need to complete each. We have enclosed an AI/AN FACES 2019 fact sheet with additional information about the study, and an Agreement of Collaboration and Participation, which describes what your program and Mathematica agree to do to ensure the study’s success.

Fall 2019 and spring 2020 study visit activities

Child assessment battery. During the visit, we will administer a 45-minute individual one-on-one assessment to approximately [IF 2+ CENTERS OR 1 CENTER, 4+ CLASS: 40/IF 1 CENTER, <4 CLASS: 20] children in your program. The assessment will measure important knowledge, skills, and behaviors that are typical of children in Head Start. A trained Mathematica staff member will administer the assessment individually to each child.

Teacher reports of children. Teachers will complete a short checklist about each participating child’s cognitive and social development. The checklist for each child will take about 10 minutes to complete. The form will be available on the web or on paper.

Parent survey. We will invite the parent or guardian of each participating child to complete a 30-minute survey by telephone with a Mathematica interviewer or on the web. The focus of this survey will be parent and child activities, experiences with community agencies, health care, and parents’/guardians’ feelings and attitudes about themselves.

Spring 2020 study visit activities

Classroom observations. Study team members will observe the classrooms of participating children to measure classroom practices and instructional content. Each observation will take about three hours.

Individual staff surveys. We will ask the program directors, center directors, and teachers of participating children to complete surveys—via the web or on paper—about their employment and educational background, program goals and philosophy, and curriculum and classroom activities.

Next steps in planning the visit

Agreement to participate and tribal review and approval. The AI/AN FACES liaison, a member of Mathematica’s staff who will be responsible for working with your program, will contact you soon to answer your questions, discuss your program’s willingness to participate in the study, and the process for tribal review and approval. The AI/AN FACES liaison will also review the process for selecting centers to participate in the study. If your program chooses to participate, the liaison will also ask you to identify someone from your program to serve as an on-site coordinator (OSC). That person will work with the AI/AN FACES liaison to secure tribal approval, and once your tribe approves the study, will help organize the visits to your program.

The role of an OSC. The OSC will help the Mathematica study team put together the information needed for tribal review and approval of the study and will assist the team through the tribal approval process. When tribal approval is in place, the OSC will work with the AI/AN FACES liaison to randomly select centers, classrooms, and children for participation and will assist with scheduling study visits. If the randomly selected centers are not close to each other, we might ask the OSC to identify two coordinators. We suggest that you identify a back-up OSC, regardless of the size of your program. The OSC will receive an honorarium of $500 for helping us in fall 2019. If there are two coordinators, each will receive $250. The honorarium amount for spring 2020 is $250. If you wish, this gesture of appreciation can be made directly to the program.

Selecting centers and classrooms. Once your program has agreed to take part in the study and tribal approval is in place, we will ask you for the following information:

• The program option(s) you offer (full day, part day, center based, and home based)

• The names and zip codes of your centers

• Your best estimate of the number of classrooms in each of the centers in your program

• Your best estimate for the number of Head Start children you will serve at each of the centers in your program in fall 2019

Based on the information you provide, we will randomly select centers to participate. We will select an average of two centers per program, although the number will vary by program size. Just before we are to begin data collection, we will send the center director a letter informing him or her of its selection and describing participation in the study.

After we have selected the centers, we will randomly select approximately [IF 2+CENTER or 1 CENTER,<4 CLASS: two/IF 1 CENTER, 4+CLASS: classrooms per center. A Mathematica field enrollment specialist will facilitate this random selection process by visiting each center a few weeks before the data collection. The visit will usually last two or three days at each center. We will ask the OSC to give the field enrollment specialist a list of the classrooms and the number of children in each so the field enrollment specialist can select the classrooms.

Selecting children. A multistep process is used to select the children who will participate in the study, and this will also require the assistance of the OSC and center staff. After we have selected classrooms for the sample, the field enrollment specialist will ask the OSC to provide a list of all Head Start children in the selected classrooms. We will randomly select approximately 13 children from the rosters of each classroom and invite them to participate in the study.

Obtaining consent. Participation is voluntary, and parents will decide whether or not to give permission for their children to participate. Once we have selected children for the sample, the field enrollment specialist will work with the OSC to gain parental/guardian consent. While the field enrollment specialist is still on site, he or she will distribute informational materials to selected families. The field enrollment specialist will be available to discuss the study in person with parents and to answer their questions.

Scheduling the study visit. We hope to conduct all assessments and observations at your program within a five-day time frame. As a first step in scheduling, we would like to discuss your program’s operating schedule and will make every effort to conduct the visit at a convenient time for your program.

We welcome the opportunity to visit your program. Your participation is vital for helping OHS and Region XI assess how well Head Start is helping to advance children’s school readiness and serving the needs of the families in tribal communities. If you have questions about the site visit before we call you, please contact [FACES liaison] at Mathematica at [PHONE] or [EMAIL].

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APPENDIX A-2.C

AI/AN FACES 2019 FACT SHEET

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A
merican Indian and Alaska Native
Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey
(AI/AN FACES 2019)

Since its founding more than five decades ago, Head Start has served as the nation’s premier federally funded early childhood intervention to promote school readiness. Although we have a wealth of information about Head Start children and families in Regions I–X, historically we’ve had little national data about those who attend Head Start programs in Region XI, which includes both Native and non-Native children. Starting in 2015, the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES) began to collect the same type of rich descriptive information on children’s skills and the experiences of families attending Head Start in Region XI to help inform policies and practices.

The 2019 round of the AI/AN FACES will continue to fill this information gap so that the unique needs and learning experiences of children and families in Region XI AI/AN Head Start programs can be better understood.

THE STUDY TEAM

The study is being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, a respected, independent policy research organization whose studies of educa­tion initiatives and other programs have been used to inform national policymakers for more than 40 years. Collaborating with Mathematica on the study design and its execution are mem­bers of the AI/AN FACES Workgroup. This group comprises Region XI Head Start directors, Region XI Head Start and tribal com­munity leaders, researchers with a long history of working effectively with tribal communities and programs, and federal officials with respon­sibility for serving the children and families in Region XI. Educational Testing Service is also assisting Mathematica.

SELECTING PROGRAMS

The AI/AN FACES study will recruit 22 programs from Region XI, starting in fall 2018. Programs will be randomly selected from all eligible Region XI Head Start programs listed on the Head Start Program Information Report database for program year 2016–2017 to represent Region XI in size and geographic location. Roughly 15 percent of Region XI programs will be selected to participate in the study.

Experienced AI/AN FACES study staff, who will be trained specifically on working with tribal communities, will contact the selected programs and work with program directors and the tribal officials in each community responsible for providing tribal approval for the study to be carried out. Members of the AI/AN FACES Workgroup will partici­pate in the initial calls to program directors and provide assistance throughout the recruitment and approval process.

SELECTING CHILDREN

Nationwide, approximately 800 children from the 22 Region XI AI/AN Head Start programs will be included in the study.

Once a program has agreed to participate, and once tribal approval for the project has been obtained, Mathematica will work closely with staff at the 22 programs to randomly select children and families for the study. Random selection ensures that all 3- and 4-year-old children will have a chance to be part of the study, and that the findings from the study can be generalized to the full population of children and families served by Region XI. Region XI serves both AI/AN and non-AI/AN children and families, and both groups will be included in the study. Mathematica staff will visit each of the 22 programs in fall 2019 to select a sample of two to four classrooms per center and about 13 children per classroom. These children and their families will be invited to participate in the study. Nationwide, approximately 800 children from the 22 Region XI programs will be included in the study.

BENEFITS OF AI/AN FACES

The Administration for Children and Families and the Office of Head Start will use the information to determine the characteristics and experiences of, and outcomes for, children and families who Region XI Head Start serves. The data will be used to inform decisions regard­ing education and health practices and resources that will improve the quality of services offered in these programs. Policy changes that might result from this study will help Region XI AI/AN Head Start children and families in the future.

IMPORTANCE OF PARTNERSHIP

The key to the success of the AI/AN FACES study will be study staff and the participating tribal communities working together toward the study goals.

AI/AN FACES staff will work closely with participating programs and communities during every step of the process. To this end, time has been built into the data collection schedule for tribal review and approval of the study and for the creation of strong relationships between AI/AN FACES study staff and participants at the Head Start programs, including children and their families. AI/AN FACES liaisons and study staff will be trained by tribal cultural mentors on respectful and culturally appropriate conduct, and about the unique characteristics of tribal programs.

Source: Head Start Program Information Report, 2015-2016

COLLECTING INFORMATION

Mathematica staff will visit participating Region XI AI/AN programs to gather study data. The study team will spend about one week—in both fall 2019 and spring 2020—to assess each participating child’s cognitive and social-emotional development. We will also ask their teachers to complete a brief form about each participating child’s cognitive and social-emotional development. The parent or guardian of participating children will be invited to participate in a survey by web or telephone. In spring 2020, staff will observe each of the study classrooms, and Head Start staff will be surveyed in all programs.

ON-SITE ASSISTANCE

We will establish a cooperative partnership with an on-site coordinator (OSC) from each Head Start program, identified by the program director. We will work with the OSC to schedule program visits and to help get consent from families for their children to participate in the study. Mathematica staff will work with the OSC to create a document that details the logistics of our program visit. The OSC is typically a staff member at the program such as an education coordinator or assistant director who will help us with the study logistics.

PRIVACY

Mathematica is committed to respecting and protecting the privacy of respondents and the data entrusted to us. Having conducted many studies involving disadvantaged populations, including the three most recent rounds of FACES conducted in Regions I–X, Mathematica has substantial experience implementing stringent security procedures. Study results will be reported only in group form for all of Region XI; we will not present data on child performance by teacher, by class, by program or by tribal group. In this way, the privacy of children and families, teachers, programs, and tribal communities will be carefully guarded. At the beginning of the study, we will tell participants about the study and our privacy policies. If a parent signs a form allowing his/her child to participate in the study, he or she will also have the right to remove the child from the study if he or she chooses to do so. Mathematica senior project staff will be responsible for making sure that the whole study team under­stands the necessity of maintaining strict privacy of the information they collect. All staff involved with the study will sign privacy pledges. All field staff visiting centers will have undergone a comprehensive security review and background check.

The privacy of participants will be protected when study findings or data files are shared with qualified users. At the conclu­sion of the study, we intend to prepare files con­taining the data that are collected, which will then be made available to qualified researchers. Tribal identities and the names of other direct identifiers of any participating communities, programs, staff, children, or parents will not be included on the file. While identifiers are removed, the data file contains many characteristics of programs, staff, and families; therefore, as additional protection, researchers will only be granted access to the data if they agree to abide by a set of conditions that are intended to ensure that the privacy of AI/AN children, families, programs, and communities are protected, that the data are used in a responsible way, and that findings are reported accurately and take into account the unique characteristics of tribal com­munities. To be granted access to the data, researchers must submit a plan for how they will analyze the data and who they will engage in the interpretation of the findings from the analysis, show evidence demonstrating prior experience conducting research with tribal programs and communities, and have undergone Institutional Review Board review. The researcher must also agree to submit drafts of manuscripts and presentations for review by the AI/AN FACES Data Committee prior to publication or presentation, and to strongly consider feedback from the committee. In addition, researchers will need to review a document outlining best practices for AI/AN FACES tribal data use, submit a data security plan, sign a data use agreement, and obtain a signed confidentiality pledge from all members of the researcher’s team.

FINDINGS

A report of study findings will be prepared, with the first one scheduled for the summer or fall of 2020. We will notify you when this report is published via email alerts. You can also visit the website address for Mathematica Policy Research (http://www.mathematica-mpr.com) or ACF (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/research/project/american-indian-and-alaska-native-head-start-family-and-child-experiences-survey-faces) for more information about these reports.

TO FIND OUT MORE

Contact: Dr. Lizabeth Malone, the project director, at Mathematica Policy Research, (202) 264-3488, [email protected]. Or you can visit the ACF website.

Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: The referenced collection of information is voluntary. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB control number for the described collection is 0970-0151 and it expires XX/XX/XXXX.

APPENDIX A-2.D

AI/AN FACES 2019 ON-SITE COORDINATOR LETTER

This page has been left blank for double-sided copying.

1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002-4221

Telephone (202) 484-9220

Fax (202) 863-1763

www.mathematica-mpr.com

[DATE]

Dear [OSC]:

Thank you for agreeing to help us conduct the upcoming American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, known as AI/AN FACES 2019. The Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, an independent policy research organization, to conduct the study. AI/AN FACES will provide details about the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families who Region XI AI/AN Head Start programs serve. It will also provide observations about the relationships among family and program characteristics, classroom quality, and school readiness.

Your program director has chosen you to help us put together the information we need to select our sample of children and schedule visits to Head Start centers in your program. AI/AN FACES 2019 involves collecting data in fall 2019 and in spring 2020.

• In fall 2019 and spring 2020, Mathematica study staff will spend about one week at your program site to administer a child assessment battery to each selected child whose parents have agreed to let him or her participate. Each participating child’s parent or guardian will be invited to complete a survey on the web or by phone, whichever the parent prefers. We will also ask each child’s classroom teacher to complete a brief form about his or her social and emotional development.

• In spring 2020, we will ask the program and center directors and the teachers of the children who are participating to complete a survey on the web (or on paper if they prefer). Mathematica staff will also observe selected classrooms. Each observation will take about three hours.

You are important to the success of the study, and participating will require that you spend some time outside of your regular duties helping us. In recognition of this, if your program director agrees, you will receive an honorarium in the amount of $500 for the fall 2019 round of data collection. You will receive an additional $250 for helping us plan our data collection visit in the spring.

This letter and the attached AI/AN FACES fact sheet provide details about the study activities. The following are the core activities for which we will need your help and an approximate schedule for each:

Sample selection activities

1. Center selection. In fall 2019, we will randomly select centers to participate in AI/AN FACES. We will select an average of two centers per program, although the number will vary by program size. If a program has only one center, we will include that center.

2. Classroom selection. [IF 2 CENTER PROGRAM or 1-CENTER, < 4 CLASSES: We will randomly select about two classrooms in your center. If your center has two or fewer classrooms, we will include all of them./IF 1-CENTER, 4+CLASSES: We will randomly select about four classrooms in your center.] A Mathematica field enrollment specialist will visit your center about three weeks before our fall 2019 data collection begins. The field enrollment specialist visit will last two or three days. During that visit, the field enrollment specialist will ask you for a list of all classrooms in your center.

3. Child selection. After classrooms have been chosen, we will randomly select children for the study. The field enrollment specialist will ask for a list of the names, dates of birth, and enrollment dates into preschool Head Start for all children in the selected classrooms. We will select approximately 13 children per classroom and will invite those children and their families to participate.

4. Parent/guardian consent (permission). Once we have selected the children, Mathematica will work with you and the teachers to gain parental consent. While the field enrollment specialist is still on site, he or she will distribute informational materials to the families. The field enrollment specialist will be available to discuss the study in person with teachers and parents. Only children whose parents or guardians give consent for their participation will be included in the assessments and surveys.

Data collection activities

Fall 2019 and spring 2020

1. Administer assessments to children in the study. A trained member of Mathematica’s team will give a 45-minute assessment to each child. The assessments are designed to measure important school readiness skills identified by Head Start’s Early Learning Outcomes Framework, including language and number skills. Assessing all the children will take up to five days. We will work with you to arrange the assessment schedule. Each child will receive a book valued at $10.

2. Ask classroom teachers to complete reports on each child. We will ask teachers to complete short checklists for each selected child in their classroom. Each will take 10 minutes and can be completed on the web or on paper. Teachers will complete the checklists on their own time and will receive $10 for each checklist they complete.

3. Survey parents or guardians. We will survey a parent or guardian for each study child—by web or over the phone (whichever the parent prefers). Parents will receive $30 for completing each survey.

Spring 2020

1. Staff surveys. We will ask the program director, center directors, and teachers of each selected classroom to complete a survey. These surveys will collect background information and information on professional experience, program practices, and classroom activities.

2. Conduct classroom observations. Mathematica staff will observe the selected classrooms to collect information on classroom practices and instructional content. Each observation will take approximately three hours. We will work with you to schedule them. The center staff and teachers should make no special preparations for them. Each classroom will receive a gift for participating.

I will call you in a few days to discuss the study and answer any questions you have. You may also contact me at [xxx-xxx-xxxx] or [EMAIL]. We very much appreciate your support and willingness to help with this important study, and we welcome any input you would like to provide. More information about AI/AN FACES is on the Administration for Children and Families AI/AN FACES website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/research/project/american-indian-and-alaska-native-head-start-family-and-child-experiences-survey-faces.

Sincerely,

[AI/AN FACES Liaison]

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APPENDIX A-2.E

AI/AN FACES 2019 CENTER DIRECTOR LETTER

This page has been left blank for double-sided copying.

1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002-4221

Telephone (202) 484-9220

Fax (202) 863-1763

www.mathematica-mpr.com

[DATE]

Dear [Center Director]:

Thank you for agreeing to help us conduct the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, known as AI/AN FACES 2019. The Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, an independent policy research organization, to conduct the study. AI/AN FACES will provide details about the characteristics, experiences, and outcomes of children and families who Region XI AI/AN Head Start programs serve. It will also provide observations about the relationships among family and program characteristics, classroom quality, and school readiness.

To accomplish these goals, we will be working with an on-site coordinator (OSC) enlisted by the program director. The OSC selected by your program director is [FILL OSC NAME]. The OSC will help coordinate activities between your center and our staff and will facilitate the work of the Mathematica team visiting your center to collect the data for the study.

AI/AN FACES involves collecting data at two points in time: fall 2019 and spring 2020.

• In fall 2019 and spring 2020, we will administer a child assessment battery to each selected child whose parents have agreed to let him or her participate. Each participating child’s parent or guardian will be invited to complete a survey on the web or by phone, whichever the parent prefers. We will also ask each child’s classroom teacher to complete a brief form about his or her social and emotional development.

• In spring 2020, we will ask the program and center directors and the teachers of the children who are participating to complete a survey on the web (or on paper if they prefer). Mathematica staff will also observe selected classrooms. Each observation will take about three hours.

Sample selection activities

1. Classroom selection. [IF 2 CENTER PROGRAM or 1-CENTER, < 4 CLASSES: Approximately two classrooms will be randomly selected in your center. If your center has two or fewer classrooms, we will include all of them. /IF 1-CENTER, 4+CLASSES: Approximately four classrooms will be randomly selected in your center.] A Mathematica field enrollment specialist will visit your center about three weeks before our fall 2019 data collection begins. The field enrollment specialist visit will last two or three days. During that visit, the field enrollment specialist will ask you for a list of all classrooms in your center.

2. Child selection. After classrooms have been chosen, we will randomly select children for the study. The field enrollment specialist will ask for a list of the names, dates of birth, and enrollment dates into preschool Head Start for all children in the selected classrooms. We will select approximately 13 children per classroom and will invite those children and their families to participate.

3. Parent/guardian consent (permission). Once we have selected the children, Mathematica will work with you and the teachers to gain parental consent. While the field enrollment specialist is still on site, he or she will distribute informational materials to the families. The field enrollment specialist will be available to discuss the study in person with teachers and parents. Only children whose parents or guardians give consent for their participation will be included in the assessments and surveys.

Data Collection Activities

Fall 2019 and Spring 2020

1. Administer assessments to children in the study. A trained member of Mathematica’s team will give a 45-minute assessment to each child. The assessments are designed to measure important school readiness skills identified by Head Start’s Early Learning Outcomes Framework, including language and number skills. Assessing all the children will take up to five days. We will work with you to arrange the assessment schedule. Each child will receive a book valued at $10.

2. Ask classroom teachers to complete reports on each child. We will ask teachers to complete short checklists for each selected child in their classroom. Each will take 10 minutes and can be completed on the web or on paper. Teachers will complete the checklists on their own time and will receive $10 for each checklist they complete.

3. Survey parents or guardians. We will survey a parent or guardian for each study child—by web or over the phone (whichever the parent prefers). Parents will receive $30 for completing each survey.

Spring 2020

1. Staff surveys. We will ask the program director, center directors, and teachers of each selected classroom to complete a survey. These surveys will collect background information and information on professional experience, program practices, and classroom activities.

2. Conduct classroom observations. Mathematica staff will observe the selected classrooms to collect information on classroom practices and instructional content. Each observation will take approximately three hours. We will work with the OSC to schedule them. The center staff and teachers should make no special preparations for them. Each classroom will receive a gift for participating.

You may contact me at [xxx-xxx-xxxx] or [EMAIL] if you have questions about the study or your center’s participation. We very much appreciate your support and willingness to help with this important study, and welcome any input you would like to provide. More information about AI/AN FACES can be found by accessing the Administration of Children and Families AI/AN FACES website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/research/project/american-indian-and-alaska-native-head-start-family-and-child-experiences-survey-faces.

Sincerely,

[AI/AN FACES liaison]

1 J. M. Love, L. B. Tarullo, H. Raikes, and R. Chazan-Cohen, “Head Start: What Do We Know About Its Effectiveness? What Do We Need to Know?” in Handbook of Early Childhood Development, ed. K. McCartney and D. Phillips, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006.

2 J. M. Love, L. B. Tarullo, H. Raikes, and R. Chazan-Cohen, “Head Start: What Do We Know About Its Effectiveness? What Do We Need to Know?” in Handbook of Early Childhood Development, ed. K. McCartney and D. Phillips, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006.