About US

The Committee for Early Childhood Development Head Start Program (CECD) has been serving children and families in the Hollis, Queens, area since 1966, without interruption. The program’s main site is housed in a newly renovated building located at 193-04 Jamaica Ave., Hollis, NY 11423. The program expanded from an initial enrollment of 30 children and 8 staff to 215 children, and 40 staff (17 are former parents in the program). CECD also operates a Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program (UPK) under an annual contract awarded by the NYC Board of Education. The additional UPK hours affords the program the ability to have an extended day in order to better accommodate the needs of working families.
The school contains 8 classrooms; 2 are full day classes and 6 are double session classes. The staffing requirements for these classrooms match those set out in the NYC Health Code. We have an adequate ratio of teaching staff that are bilingual (Spanish, French/Creole, and Urdu). All Group Teachers meet NYS Department of Education standards.
In September 2008, CECD took over the sponsorship of The Human Resources Center of St. Albans Head Start Program.  This acquisition resulted in increasing CECD’s sites from 1 to 3, and the total children served from 215 to 476.  The Jamaica Avenue-Hollis site remains the main site.  The other two sites are located at 172-17 Linden Boulevard, St. Albans, and 118-46 Riverton Street, St. Albans.

The Linden Blvd. site has 25 staff and services 168 children.  It contains 6 classrooms (4 Part-Day and 2 Full Day).
The Riverton Street site has 22 staff and services 93 children.  It contains 6 Full-Day classrooms
Both of these sites have UPK hours.

The communities we serve encompass a kaleidoscope of colors and cultures. Approximately 80% of our families are non-USA born. These families represent several continents as well as more than 15 separate countries. Many of our children are from homes that are linguistically and culturally diverse. We acknowledge and support this diversity, and children are encouraged to retain skills in their home language while learning to understand a second language at school. Staff responds to each child as an individual, and supports and respects gender, culture, language, ethnicity, and family composition.