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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Head Start cuts forcing hard choices


Austin Herth,3, of Post Falls is one of 200 preschoolers on the waiting list for Head Start at North Idaho College. With enrichment options limited, North Idaho families struggle to find good quality care for the very young.
 (Kathy Plonka / The Spokesman-Review)

Sean Alegria, age 4, can write his name already.

He’s pretty fluent in colors, and if you ask, he’ll sing a song describing the right way to write a 2 or a 3.

The Post Falls boy has learned all that – along with basic skills in table manners and turn-taking – in only a few months at Head Start, the federally funded preschool program.

“They teach them personal hygiene. The kids have learned to use words to say ‘I’m upset with you,’ ” says Sean’s mother, Cherie Alegria.

“They’ve really learned how to be human.”

Alegria would like the same experience for her step-grandson, Austin Herth, who’s 3. But she knows it took more than a year to get Sean into the program for low-income families. And she knows that Austin is one of more than 200 North Idaho children now waiting for a Head Start spot to open. “There’s a chance he won’t get in,” Alegria said.

It’s a chance that grew more likely this month in the wake of 1 percent across-the-board cuts to the Head Start budget nationwide.

Officials at the North Idaho College program were notified two weeks ago to expect a $23,000 reduction in their nearly $2.2 million annual budget, said Director Doug Fagerness. While the news was expected, it still sent administrators scrambling to find ways to protect children from the fallout.

“When you’re running a program that’s real tight – we don’t have a lot of extravagance in our budget – you have to rethink how you’re going to do things,” Fagerness said.

Plans negotiated this week call for shifting staff members and increasing average class sizes from 18 to 20, Fagerness said. If a couple of kids are occasionally absent, the change should work just fine.

But the cuts beg a larger question about enrichment services to poor families in five North Idaho counties, Fagerness said. Given increases in population and changes in society, Head Start should be increasing programs, not cutting back, in the region.

“I’m looking at places where we’re not. Like Priest River: That’s a pocket of poverty there,” he said. “We need to be in Spirit Lake, Athol, St. Maries. We need to be thinking of how we can get services to where kids and low-income families are.”

Head Start was founded in 1965 as part of Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty campaign. It has become a year-round program that serves some 907,000 children with a budget of $6.8 billion. Long-term studies have shown that enrollment in Head Start can save social costs later in life, Fagerness said.

“What we do know for sure is that tuition at the Boise State Penitentiary is $20,000 per year,” he said. “Studies are clear that we can prevent many of those behaviors that lead to involvement with the juvenile justice system and the penitentiary.”

More than 2,400 children ages birth to 5 meet federal income and other guidelines to qualify for Head Start in North Idaho, Fagerness said. But right now, fewer than 300 children are served.

That leaves a lot of vulnerable children missing out on lessons they aren’t likely to learn elsewhere, parents and officials agreed. Teachers trained in early childhood development stress everything from academic preparation and social interaction to nutrition, said Noelle Herth, Austin’s stepmother.

“In day care, they don’t get anything like this,” said Herth, who is Cherie Alegria’s daughter.

The situation is exacerbated by a lack of consistency in other child care programs in Idaho, Fagerness said.

“I think there are some wonderful places for kids,” he said. “That being said, there are terrible places for kids.”

A bill that would have created stricter standards for private day care programs and small centers has stalled in this year’s Legislature, to the dismay of Fagerness and other advocates for young children.

“I would like to see a minimum regulatory floor established, and we don’t have that in Idaho at this time,” he said.

Supporters are determined to press the issue again. In the meantime, it’s up to parents to carefully investigate the places where they leave their children.

“You go and you get a bad haircut and in two weeks it’s over,” Fagerness said. “You go and you have bad child care and the implications are lifelong.”