State Asked To Help Fund Head Start Senate Bill Would Provide Enough Money For 18 More Children In North Idaho

Idaho no longer can afford to ignore its needy children, Kootenai County children’s advocates said Thursday.

Four years after Head Start officials pleaded with state lawmakers to pitch in to expand the program, waiting lists still are growing. With lower than average immunization rates and too many uninsured children, Idaho’s poor national reputation for child care isn’t getting any rosier.

“The evidence is piling up and becoming more compelling,” Idaho Head Start Director Doug Fagerness said Thursday. “When we keep turning up (at the bottom), it seems like it might be useful for us to move out of denial and take some action.”

Legislators have supported the program in concept but have struggled to come up with funding.

Children’s advocates held a press conference Thursday to show support for Senate Bill 1427, which would expand Head Start by serving 255 more children. If passed, the $1.5 million expansion would include $90,000 for 18 children in North Idaho.

Head Start offers preschool and other parenting assistance to low-income families with parents who are working or going to school.

One of nine states that doesn’t provide state funding for the program, Idaho Head Start is funded with $9 million in federal money and $3 million in local fund raising and donations.

Last fall, Gov. Phil Batt touted early education as the best option to begin tackling social ills and a growing prison population.

Head Start officials cite studies showing every $1 spent on early education saves $6 in future costs related to juvenile justice, teenage pregnancy and special education.

“If we do the job right in the early years then we don’t have the problems we see later, that more and more students need remedial education,” said Ron Bell, NIC interim president.

Statewide, the program employs 472 and serves 2,237 children, 247 of whom are in Idaho’s five northernmost counties. Still, there are 754 eligible children not being reached in North Idaho. Kootenai County’s population has grown 60.9 percent since 1990, according to J.P. Stravens Planning Associates.

In Coeur d’Alene, seven schools have higher-than-average levels of free and reduced lunch students. The number of poor children is still growing, but an even bigger influx of affluent families has skewed the region’s demographics, leaving some low-income programs in the lurch.

The Coeur d’Alene School District has lost $88,000 in Title I money for remedial help since 1994, said Title I coordinator Lynn Dennis.

Schools with the most poor families receive Title I money for remedial reading based on the percentage of students on free and reduced lunch. The high number of children from wealthy families has lowered the district’s percentage of needy children, even though there are more than ever.

Post Falls special education director Joann Curtis said 45 percent of the district’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch and 30 3-year-olds are on the Head Start waiting list. The Lakeland School District has needs, but no program.

Head Start officials said they expect the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee to hold hearings on the bill sometime next week.

, DataTimes