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This Direct Final Rule describes how the Office of Head Start (OHS) officially delays the compliance date for programs to meet the new competitive threshold for the Instructional Support domain of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS®) used to determine whether a Head Start agency will be subject to an open competition under the Designation Renewal System. The effective date in the Head Start Program Performance Standards that raises the CLASS Instructional Support competitive threshold from 2.3 to 2.5 was August 1, 2025. ACF is pursuing this as a Direct Final Rule due to the time constraints of when the threshold increase was scheduled to go into effect. This Direct Final Rule officially delays this effective date to August 1, 2027. OHS has had and continues to have extensive public engagement related to its use of the CLASS® and related to the Designation Renewal System more broadly, including opportunities for public participation from members of specific communities such as American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start programs. Additionally, the existing CLASS® competitive thresholds were established through a notice of proposed rulemaking process with a public comment period in 2019-2020 and supported by years of programmatic data.