Timing is everything!

For the first few weeks of blogging I have focused on giving insight into me, and how my personal life has shaped my professional one. This week I had many topics in mind and the difficult task was deciding which topic should be my focus in light of the news related to the Government Accountability Office investigative (GAO) report. 
 
In a week where I could have highlighted events of the past week including the 3,500 parents, children, and early childhood leaders attending Star Power 2010 or a separate event the fifty individuals from community based training, two and four colleges, and other invested partners (including Head Start) meeting to discuss improved educational transition the news released by the GAO report has overshadowed the world of Head Start. 
 
There are a few points from a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent to Chairman George Miller and the Committee on Education and Labor regarding the (GAO) investigation that I wanted to highlight for readers:
 
“As a leader on Head Start, you know that the program is designed to put our nation’s low-income children on a road to opportunity. Allowing ineligible children to enroll in the program is a blatant violation of Head Start’s rules, and it steals opportunity from children who need it most. Our Administration will not stand for it.”
 
“I want to underscore that the vast majority of people who work at Head Start centers are dedicated professionals who work hard to deliver a better future to more than 900,000 children within the confines of the law. We cannot allow a few unscrupulous individuals or grantees to undermine the mission of Head Start.” 
 
Violations of this nature will not be tolerated and those operating grantees and receiving federal funding for implementation will appropriately serve our nation’s low-income and at-risk children or face “re-competition” for a grantee who will serve the needs of their community. Additional measures will be built into new forms of monitoring to ensure program integrity, and new opportunities for reporting fraud will be available. 
 
The closing remarks by Secretary Sebelius identifying those dedicated professionals who do carry forth the mission of Head Start and the support services that are provided to nearly a million children are ones that often gets missed in the main stream media, gets lost in a media opportunity such as this, but will continue to be the foundation for which Head Start continues to provide comprehensive support services for families and children across the country. 
 
This brings me back to one of the goals that I have for this blog - the opportunity to highlight not only Head Start but all the key components of an early childhood system that often are not highlighted and showcased when the timing is right.  
   

Jeremy Reuter is the Director of the Head Start Collaboration Office