Lincoln Head Start Center Closes
Last updated Tuesday, August 19, 2008 9:17 PM CDT in News
By Rose Ann Pearce
The Morning News
The Head Start Center in Lincoln closed just days before the scheduled opening, leaving low-income parents, their children and center staff in a predicament.
The closing was made public Monday, nine days before the opening of a new school year for 19 3- and 4-year-olds who attend the center. There are three staff members assigned there - two certified teachers and an aide.
Katrina Johnson, a parent who represents the Lincoln center on the Head Start policy council, said the decision was made Friday night in an emergency meeting of the policy council.
"We were presented with no other options," said Johnson, who had two children enrolled in the program for the coming year.
"I'm left with nothing," Johnson said. "I'm stuck. It was like a punch in the stomach."
Slots have been allocated in the other centers in Washington County for the children, Johnson said.
That option doesn't serve her well since she works at a Lincoln convenience store and can't afford to drive her children to a Fayetteville center in the morning and drive back to pick them up in the afternoon.
"For a lot of us, it's not an option," she said. "It's not financially possible for me to go to Fayetteville every day."
The reason for the closing apparently is budgetary, although questions about the closing were referred to Ivory Conley, the Head Start director for Washington County.
Conley referred calls to Kathleen Randall, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Agency of Washington County, which operates the Head Start program. Randall was out of the office Tuesday afternoon and could not be reached for comment.
The Head Start program in Lincoln had been available for more than 20 years.
A new pre-kindergarten program for 4-year-olds, funded through Arkansas Better Chance, opened this year at Lincoln Elementary School but the program is already full, Johnson said. Her 3-year-old is on the waiting list for next year.
She can't afford day care and when she called the Department of Human Services about day care assistance vouchers, she received a recording saying there was a waiting list for vouchers.
Another parent, Shane Tawr, is encouraging parents to write letters to Arkansas' Congressional delegation, although he admits, "I don't know what they can do." His 3-year-old son was to attend the Lincoln program. He said his son has been learning at home and wanted that to continue in a more structured environment around other children.
"For my son not to have the opportunity is like a rug pulled from under us," said Tawr, a farmer. "We have no back-up plan."
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