Congress must give Head Start the means to do what it has mandated

Since its inception in our community in 1965, Androscoggin Head Start and Child Care has succeeded by promoting school readiness in children and self-sufficiency for their families through health services, social services, nutritious meals, parent involvement, and early childhood education.

Currently, 387 economically disadvantaged preschool children and their families receive quality care and early education in 18 classrooms, at 12 sites, and in 110 homes throughout Androscoggin County.

This number represents only 15 percent of eligible children that need Head Start in our community. And the funding we receive to provide quality pre-school and child care, health services, social services, and special services to children with disabilities, is in jeopardy.

Last December, Congress re-authorized the National Head Start Program with hundreds of costly new requirements. Yet in the same breath, they failed to appropriate funds needed to pay for current program operations, much less the expensive new rules and regulations.

Funding for Head Start was cut in the same appropriations bill that included more than 1,300 controversial earmarks for unrelated programs and projects, totaling an estimated $20 billion. The new, unfunded rule changes in the 2007 Head Start re-authorization includes the following costly items:

• Increased credentialing requirements for teachers, family service workers and other staff with no wage increase.

• Imposition of new HIPAA-like privacy requirements which are extremely labor intensive.

• Extensive new record-keeping and reporting requirements which cost time and money.

• Androscoggin Head Start and Child Care recently received national certification for complying with 100 percent of the Head Start standards. However, to maintain quality services as costs have risen over the last several years, some services and positions have been eliminated, such as transportation for our children, making it difficult for some families to benefit from the program, especially in our rural centers.

Our agency works with the most vulnerable, at-risk populations and do not want to make further cuts to services: the children need a Head Start.

As executive director of Androscoggin Head Start and Child Care since 1987, and having been with the agency for almost 40 years, I have witnessed years of full support from Congress, and I have seen this support cut under the current administration.

Our Head Start program has essentially been flat-funded since 2000, and, due to inflation, the cost of oil, food and health insurance, our agency struggles to maintain quality services to the children and families we serve.

I am especially alarmed at the lack of funding and new unfunded mandates with the recent reauthorization. Head Start needs complete funding in order to offer the quality services to as many eligible children as possible.

And these children need the public’s help in telling Congress to support Head Start. Senators and representatives must be informed that the community believes in the work Head Start is doing with low-income children and families.

Public support for Head Start can help to make the difference in the life of a child.

To quote one of my personal heroes, Marion Wright Edelman: “Every child needs a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start, and a moral start in life, and a successful package to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.”

Supporting Androscoggin Head Start and Child Care helps the children in Androscoggin County who need these things most.

Estelle Rubinstein is executive director of Androscoggin County Head Start.