Hillcrest Head Start opens after being forced to close last year: Who can sign up?
ASHEVILLE- Tables at Hillcrest Head Start were filled with books and carnival games with prizes for kids to enjoy on a mid-July day. Children played with building blocks and drew pictures. A snow cone truck was parked outside of the building in the middle of Hillcrest Apartments and a handful of community partners staffed booths providing financial, emotional and clinical resources.
It was the hopeful relaunch to Hillcrest Head Start ― a critical program for families in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods that had disappeared for almost a year.
In the 2022-23 school year, Hillcrest Head Start had to close due to staffing shortages, leaving 10 children to relocate. On July 19 the school held an open house announcing the classrooms would reopen for the 2023-24 school year, starting on Aug. 28.
Hillcrest Head Start is one of the 23 locations in Buncombe and Madison counties that Community Action Opportunities Head Start operates.
Community Action Opportunities is a nonprofit in Asheville and offers a multitude of resources for lower income families, one of which is Head Start.
It also partners with Asheville City Schools to include Head Start children in four of their Pre-K program locations at Ira B. Jones, Isaac Dickson, Hall Fletcher and Lucy S. Herring elementary schools.
The program offers "high quality early childhood education," Brian Repass, Head Start director at Community Action Opportunities told the Citizen Times.
CAO provides support services and health services for children including screenings, immunizations and physicals. As well as offering goal setting and crisis support services for families.
"This is preventative medicine for our society," said Crystal Martin, the education manager for Community Action Opportunities Head Start. Martin said that children who are 5 and younger are in the most important developmental stage.
"Research shows that 80% of brain development occurs in those pivotal years. So, if children can get in these early childhood programs, develop those social skills necessary, have opportunities to practice fine and large motor skills, how to work cooperatively with their peers, they're going to be that much more successful when they get to kindergarten."
About Community Action Opportunities
A beginning teacher assistant with little experience begins at $15.84 an hour while a lead teacher position starts at $23 an hour, according to Repass.
A beginning teacher assistant salary is lower than the living wage for Asheville, which is $20.10. According to previous Citizen Times reporting, the average price of an Asheville home in May was $457,007, which is higher than major cities like Chicago at $286,482 and Atlanta at $384,388.
More: Where does Asheville home price growth rank in U.S.? Hint: pricier than Chicago, Atlanta
To combat the staffing shortage and low wages, Repass told the Citizen Times that they have partnered with Dogwood Health Trust, a nonprofit in Western North Carolina.
"We got a grant from them to help develop our staff to recruit people to move to Asheville and have experience in teaching early childhood education, and then also grow our own teachers and teacher assistants, through recruiting from our Head Start families and housing authority residents. The grant is almost a million dollars for over three years," Repass said.
Pre-kindergarten teachers in North Carolina are required to be licensed just as public-school teachers are.
More: What do Buncombe County, Asheville school employees make? Commission votes on budget
CAO Head Start has single classrooms within 14 of Buncombe County elementary schools and two Madison County elementary schools. This makes it an easier transition for families when their child is ready for kindergarten because the children are prepared to be in that elementary school and the parents are comfortable with that school as well, Repass said.
As of last month, they served 405 children, according to Repass.
In 2021-22 Community Action Opportunities enacted a mid-year wage increase. Repass said that teacher assistants got a minimum 6% increase whereas lead teachers got an average 16% increase, bringing the salaries to where they are now.
"Their increases were based on the number of years' experience on their teacher license and brought them up to equivalent pay for local public schools licensed teachers," he said.
A statement from their 2021-22 annual report said, "These increases remained above the cost of living, but we still struggled to compete with the schools and lost several licensed teaching staff. This difficulty filling vacancies corresponds to national data. According to The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the childcare workforce lost 88,000 jobs, or 8.4 percent of its pre-pandemic workforce while private sector jobs and nonfarm employment have recovered."
Whitney Wright, a former teacher for Community Action Opportunities Head Start, now the education supervisor at the Lonnie D. Burton Center on Livingston Street, said she's struggled finding child care.
"Having children myself and struggling with finding child care for me to go back to work after having a baby, that was a challenge. I make a little bit too much to qualify for services but really not enough to pay for private care," Wright said.
To qualify for Head Start a family of four can't make more than $28,000 a year, according to Leslie Hennessee-Patrick, the family and community partnership program manager at Community Action Opportunities.
Patrick told the Citizen Times that there are normally 18 children per classroom, and they always have families on the waiting list.
"We can take up to 10% of families that are over the income guidelines, and a lot of times what happens is those might be families who have children with a disability, or it could be families going through personal struggles like domestic violence and situations like that," Patrick said.
Repass said the full cost to send a child through Head Start is $18,500.
"This includes all of our revenues: Federal Head Start funds, State N.C. Pre-Kindergarten Program funds, local Buncombe County Government funds, Federal Food Program revenue (Child and Adult Care Food Program), and Buncombe County Partnership for Children programs. This also includes non-Federal In-Kind Match. This includes space for our classrooms that we do not have to pay for from Buncombe County Schools, Madison County Schools and the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville. It takes all of these programs and funds to support our Head Start program and to put a child and family through the program," he said.
Community Action Opportunities Head Start and Verner Center for Early Learning work hand-in-hand. Verner takes children ages 6 weeks to 3 years, who then move up to Head Start, which takes children ages 3 to 5.
According to the Verner Center for Early Learning, the first 2,000 days of life (up to about age 5 1/2) matter the most in a child's development. High quality early education is proven to increase positive, life-long outcomes — children who attend programs like Early Head Start and Head Start have a 46% better chance of avoiding incarceration, a 44% better chance of graduating from high school, a 50% better chance of avoiding teen pregnancy and a 26% better chance of financial self-sufficiency.
About Verner
Verner Center for Early Learning serves more than 200 children, which results in it serving dozens of families in the Asheville and Buncombe County. These are mostly families of lower income who qualify for Early Head Start.
The children at Verner get a free breakfast, snack and lunch all from a developed nutrition program born at Verner called "Rainbow In My Tummy."
Each classroom at Verner is designed to have muted colors and calming lights to keep the children feeling safe and at home, Jessica May, the vice president of philanthropy and marketing at Verner, told the Citizen Times.
Most of the children come from a home where their families can't afford to feed them three meals a day. Before the pandemic 1 in 8 children in the classroom had a developmental variation problem and after the pandemic, Verner sees 6 in every 8 children that have some sort of developmental difficulty, Marcia Whitney, president and CEO told the Citizen Times.
They have about 90 staff members, with around 60 of those being educators.
Before the pandemic the lowest hourly wage was $13.50, which was for teaching assistants who came in with little to no experience. When Verner was granted a federal Stabilization Grant during the pandemic, they were able to raise this hourly to $15 — still $5 less than the living wage in Asheville, which is $20.10. A teacher who has a degree in the field and has experience starts at around $17, Whitney said.
The stabilization grants disappear on Dec. 1 of this year. If child care stabilization grants aren’t extended then many child care workers could face a 12%-20% decrease in their hourly wages, Whitney said.
More: Without NC funding, child care workers in Asheville, Buncombe could see big pay cuts
Advocates are asking for an investment of continuing stabilization grant funding in the amount of $300 million to the N.C. General Assembly. N.C. House bill 342 and Senate bill 292 passed the first reading of the House on March 13 to extend child care compensation grants to early education.
The bill states that it’s an “act to appropriate funds of $300 million to extend the compensation grants portion of the stabilization grants for child care centers.” One key thing the money could do if the bill is passed is help teachers to maintain better wages.
Verner numbers
Verner Center for Early Learning served a total of 275 children in 2022-23 in Buncombe County, according to its impact report.
56% were children of color.
39% were from single parent homes.
94% were students receiving subsidized and/or free tuition.
More than half the students they serve are 3 years old or younger.
Community Action Opportunities numbers
From the 2021-22 annual report Head Start served 26% of children eligible for the program in Buncombe and Madison counties.
59.1% of students were white.
29.4% were Black.
25.2% were Hispanic.
46% were female.
53% were male.
North Carolina Pre-K
N.C. pre-Kindergarten is the umbrella of these programs, with classrooms located in three types of places; child care, public schools, and Head Start facilities. Head Start is just one way for a child to do preschool in North Carolina. Since 2001, North Carolina has provided Pre-K to eligible children.
According to the Down East Partnership for Children website, to be eligible the child must turn 4 years old on or before Aug. 31 of the school year. The child must be deemed "at-risk."
"The primary risk-factor is income, but children with developmental/educational needs, some children with chronic health conditions, children with limited English proficiency, and children of military families may also be considered for the program," the website states.
From a report done by the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation and findings submitted by the Division of Child Development and Early Education, on average, the overall cost for an NC Pre-K slot is $9,126, with state funding covering 61% of it.
On average a Head Start lead teacher makes $32,986 and an assistant teacher makes $20,585 a year.
An average public school lead teacher for Pre-K makes $43,565 and an assistant teacher makes $21,526.
An average child care lead teacher makes $25,372 and an assistant teacher makes $20,269.
To apply for Head Start, follow this link: Apply Online (childplus.net). Call CAO at 828-252-2495 or email them at info@communityactionopportunities.org.
McKenna Leavens is the education reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at mleavens@citizentimes.com or follow her on Twitter @LeavensMcKennna. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Hillcrest Head Start reopens for Asheville children
