Setback for Head Start

CEDAR RAPIDS - A state budget was finally completed Thursday, just hours before the new fiscal year started - but not in time to prevent 168 Eastern Iowa children from losing at least two weeks in the Head Start early education program.

“The best-case scenario would be (classes resume) by the end of July,” said Christi Regan, Head Start director for the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program.

The Hiawatha-based non-profit provides the federally funded program to 742 children in six counties. Of those, 168 are in classes whose assistant teachers are paid with $590,000 in state “wraparound” funds that allow the agency to extend the half-day, school-year-only program to full days, including the summer months.

Regan said the program can weather the 6 percent cut state Department of Education officials have told her to expect. But until HACAP receives its wraparound funds, it can't pay the 15 assistant teachers needed to staff as many classrooms.

“I feel bad for anybody” losing the program, said Tiffany Leyse as she collected her daughter Taylyn Gaines, 5, at the Hayes Head Start Center. The former elementary school of the same name at 1924 D St. SW will lose funding for 16 of its 36 Head Start children, including Taylyn.

The otherwise unfortunate timing has one advantage: The interruption follows Head Start's regular one-week summer recess.

The Legislature's adjournment with a budget deal late Thursday was good news, Regan said, “but that doesn't mean, unfortunately, that we know what our funding level is going to be. It's going to be a couple of weeks.”

With funding assembled from several state and federal sources, just which Head Start classes will be suspended comes down to a bit of chance.

“It's just what funding is available at the site,” Regan said.

Kelly Healey said Head Start helped daughter Audrey Mabie-Bahr, 5, develop the skills she'll need to start kindergarten this fall.

“She had a lot of issues when she first started, with interacting with other kids,” said Healey, 25, of Cedar Rapids. “They really treat her good, they inform me of her situation, and they work really hard. It's a great program, and the fact that the funding has been cut takes away from the other children.”

As the day wound down Thursday, Doris Beckett stayed cheerful about her enforced, extended vacation.

“It's going to be a little longer,” said Beckett, 56, of Cedar Rapids. “Take a little summer break, and we'll be right back here.”

Head Start is open to children up to age 5 from families earning up to the federal poverty guideline - $22,350 for a family of four. HACAP provides the program in Benton, Iowa, Johnson, Jones, Linn and Washington counties.