On March 23, 2024, President Biden signed into law provisions giving Head Start programs additional flexibility to serve children in Tribal communities. These new provisions ensure Head Start programs can more effectively serve the families for whom they were designed. Tribal Head Start programs will be able to prioritize enrolling children from the Tribe, or who live with Tribal members, regardless of family income. This change will allow Tribal Head Start Programs to grow to meet the existing demand in their communities without losing federal funding eligibility.
This means that Alaska Native and American Indian tribal programs do not need to collect income information from families for the purposes of eligibility regardless of race/ethnicity.
This link goes directly to the Office of Head Start’s Program Instruction.