Staff cut as part of restructuring program at Head Start centers

A restructuring plan designed to cut back spending at Head Start centers in Southeast Missouri calls for significant changes, primary dealing with staff members.

While the old structure included 130 teachers within the 17 facilities, the teaching staff now will number only 65.

Cindy Huey, director of the 17 Delta Area Economic Opportunity Corp. Head Start programs, released the plan, titled The Management Improvement Project, just before the end of the 2008-2009 school year.

Previously, local Head Start facilities employed 36 "float" teacher aides and 34 Family Community Partners who worked directly with parents of Head Start students. The Family Community Partner positions were eliminated under the new structure. The system now calls for 65 teachers, 65 child/family advocates and 36 aides in the Southeast Missouri District.

In a letter to Head Start employees last spring, Huey said, "We are at a point that makes it impossible to continue unless we change the current processes and structure. The [Head Start] program will not survive if we do not act."

In her address to staff, Huey said the intent of the changes was to improve communication with students' families, strengthen relationships between the classroom and home and assist the Head Start program by lowering the number of teachers required for their 50 percent bachelor's degree mandate. That mandate was significant in the release of many longtime classroom employees, including Mina Voss, Vivian Barnes and Sandy Jones, who each have more than 30 years of experience at the local level in the Head Start classrooms.

Although the three local teachers do not have the now-mandated bachelor's degree, they were grandfathered in under the old Head Start policy. Each was provided an opportunity to apply as a teacher's aide, but none was hired back.

Twelve teachers in all at the Dexter facility were laid off, and three Family Community Partners were eliminated. One supervisory position remained, along with two cooks and two bus drivers.

Parents of Head Start children were notified by letter in early May of the pending changes. The letter confirmed that rather than the previous two official teachers per classroom, each classroom will have one teacher and one child family advocate, who will serve as an assistant teacher and focus on working with parents, as did the former Family Community Partners.

The change in course, the letter to parents stressed, "is a cost-cutting move, plain and simple."