About 630 preschoolers in Montgomery County could lose bilingual classroom support under a proposed federal rule that would require English-only instruction in Head Start programs nationwide.

County Executive Marc Elrich, Council President Natali Fani-González and Community Action Board Chair DaVida Rowley announced Wednesday, Aug. 19, they are formally opposing the rule through the federal comment process. The public comment window closes Oct. 6.

Head Start serves roughly 1,000 children in Montgomery County each year through MCPS and community-based programs. About 63% come from multilingual households, according to Montgomery Community Media, meaning roughly 630 local children could be directly affected if the English-only provision takes effect. All are from families facing economic hardship.

Elrich said in a statement that the proposed changes do not cut red tape but "cut into what makes the program work." Fani-González called the English-only provision a direct attack on multilingual programs and said local leaders and providers worry the changes will reduce access and create operational challenges for Head Start providers.

What the rule would change

The proposal, published Aug. 7 by the Department of Health and Human Services, would replace current Head Start performance standards. Beyond the English-only mandate, it would:

• Remove federal limits on how many children one staff member can supervise, deferring to state policy
• Allow instructional hours to drop to three hours a day for center-based preschool, down from a current annual minimum of roughly 1,020 hours
• Make parent committees at each center optional rather than required
• Cut the cap on administrative funding from 15% to 5% of total program costs, money that currently funds staff training and mental health support

The only exception to the English-only requirement would be Head Start programs on Tribal lands, according to The 19th.

HHS projects the overhaul would preserve or expand as many as 236,000 Head Start slots nationwide and save $2.2 billion. ACF Assistant Secretary Alex J. Adams said the changes offer flexibility, not mandates. But reporting by The 19th found the final 13 pages of the proposed regulations do not specify that most provisions are optional.

Nationally, switching to English-only instruction would cost bilingual programs an estimated $2,500 per classroom to replace materials, totaling roughly $46.9 million across about 18,767 affected classrooms, according to the Milwaukee Courier. HHS anticipates some bilingual staff would need to be replaced.

Will the county fill the gap?

Asked at his Aug. 19 media briefing whether Montgomery County would use local funding to preserve current staffing levels and instructional hours, Elrich said the county would need to weigh tradeoffs first.

"I think we'd have to think about it. 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," he told reporters.

Unless legal challenges intervene, the new rules could begin taking effect as early as January 2027, with some provisions phased in over four years.

How to comment

Residents can submit public comments through Tuesday, Oct. 6, 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.