About 630 children in Montgomery County Head Start programs could lose bilingual language support under a proposed federal rule that would also remove staffing protections and shrink instructional hours for the county's most economically vulnerable preschoolers.

County Executive Marc Elrich, Council President Natali Fani-González and Community Action Board Chair DaVida Rowley are formally opposing the rule and submitting comments through the federal process. The public comment period runs through Tuesday, Oct. 6.

Elrich said the proposed changes "don't cut red tape, they cut into what makes the program work," according to Montgomery Community Media.

What the rule would change

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published the proposal in the Federal Register on Aug. 7. Titled "Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs," it would rescind the program's performance standards, last revised in 2024, and replace them with what HHS calls a "streamlined framework" that scraps roughly 1,400 regulations.

Five changes stand out for local families:

• English-only instruction would replace current bilingual support requirements. The proposal cites President Trump's executive order declaring English the country's official language.
• No federal staff-to-child ratios. States would set their own limits on how many children one worker can supervise.
• Shorter days. Center-based preschool could shrink to three hours daily.
• Parent committees become optional. They are currently required at every Head Start center.
• Administrative funding cap drops from 15% to 5%. That money now funds staff training and mental health support.

The administration says the overhaul would give the nation's roughly 1,600 Head Start programs more flexibility, according to Politico. Federal officials project it could save $2.2 billion annually.

Local impact

Head Start serves about 1,000 children in Montgomery County each year through MCPS and community-based programs. All come from families facing economic hardship. About 63% live in multilingual households, meaning the English-only provision alone could affect roughly 630 kids.

Council President Fani-González called the English-only provision "a direct attack on multilingual programs" in a statement issued Aug. 19.

At his Wednesday, Aug. 19 media briefing, Elrich was asked whether the county would use its own funding to preserve current staffing levels and instructional hours if federal requirements change. He said the county would need to weigh the tradeoffs first.

"The repercussions, how many kids might lose it, what it might mean for people who are going to wind up unemployed with nowhere to take care of kids, we've got to think about that," Elrich told Montgomery Community Media.

How to comment

The public comment period closes Tuesday, Oct. 6. Residents can submit comments online at regulations.gov, referencing docket number ACF-2026-0595, or by email to [email protected] with the docket number in the subject line. Comments become part of the public record and are posted publicly, including the commenter's identity.