During the pandemic, Head Start has served as an essential community support that bolstered our children, our youngest neighbors, and their families as they experienced quarantines, child care interruptions, economic stress, tragic loss of life, and exacerbated mental health challenges. Yet, Head Start programs experienced challenges as well. The child care sector overall saw unprecedented program closures and staff turnover (Bassok, et al., 2021a, NAEYC, 2021; Salzwedel, et al. 2020). Disruptions in caregiving due to early childhood program staffing challenges negatively impacted child development and wellbeing, particularly for marginalized children (Deoni, et al., 2021; Neece, et al. 2020). Because Head Start programs serve high-needs children and families, it is critical to understand the scope and variation of staffing challenges among Head Start programs as well as factors and policies that supported retention during the pandemic. This proposal seeks to understand the impact that COVID-19 had on Head Start employment stability, what factors determined whether staff stayed or left, and what policies contributed to strong staff retention during a public health crisis. The proposed study leverages a decade of administrative panel data to understand Head Start staff turnover rates before and during COVID-19. The research addresses high priority topics of interest for Head Start leaders and grantees, including the retention of high-quality Head Start staff, staff wellbeing, and the impact of COVID-19 on the workforce and the community. The findings will identify the percentage of staff departure directly attributable to COVID-19 and will use qualitative, open-ended administrative data to disentangle the distinct COVID-related reasons for departure (e.g., fear, illness, child care, etc.) from well-established pre-pandemic drivers of turnover (e.g., compensation, workplace culture, etc.). The research will also identify disparities in staff turnover by program characteristics and service delivery models. Notably, this study will include often-overlooked data from the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Head Start Programs as well as the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Programs. Preliminary data suggest that staff turnover is more prevalent in AIAN Early Head Start programs and that the staff turnover rate in all programs has steadily increased over the past decade. (author abstract)