Millions in Head Start funds now going straight to neighborhoods
Here’s what it means for local families
When Shontae Johnson’s 5-year-old daughter, Serenity, steps into a kindergarten classroom at Chicago Public Schools this fall, the Humboldt Park mother said five years’ worth of experiences in a neighborhood Head Start program has ensured her child will be prepared.
The extended hours and support services offered at the Nia Family Center Head Start program on the city’s West Side have also allowed Johnson to return to college, where she is slated to complete a dental hygienist program by early next year.
“My daughter is very observant, she’s a fast learner, and she wants to be the teacher’s helper all of the time,” said Johnson, 26.
The Nia Family Center is run by Chicago Commons, one of five neighborhood nonprofits that for the first time will receive money directly from the federal government to support Head Start programs for local families.
While the city’s Department of Family and Support Services had previously received the entire $145 million in federal Head Start funding as a “supergrantee,” this month Chicago became the latest large U.S. city to decentralize the financing of an early childhood initiative that for more than five decades has served children from low-income families.
While the city of Chicago will still receive nearly $52 million of the $145 million award, the remaining roughly $95 million will be granted directly to five community-based organizations that will operate Chicago Head Start and Early Head Start services that previously needed to request funding from the city.
The new awards represent a combined 7,852 slots for Head Start and Early Head Start with an increased investment in the youngest learners, up to age 3, officials said.
“For years, our Department of Family and Support Services has been a key player in strengthening our children’s academic foundation,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a news release earlier this month.
“These new grants will allow DFSS and the five community-based organizations to double down on this important work and further our ongoing, citywide investment in the short- and long-term success of our youngest learners and their families,” Lightfoot said.
Among the five local recipients of the new funding stream is the Carole Robertson Center for Learning, which provides early education for children starting at birth on Chicago’s West Side. The group was awarded a five-year, $103 million grant — about $20 million a year — from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Head Start, the nonprofit’s CEO, Bela Moté, said.
The center also recently received a five-year, $20 million grant from Early Head Start, and combined, the grants will serve more than 1,500 children and youth up to age 17 in 27 communities, Moté said.
For Moté, a top priority is supporting and recruiting Head Start teachers at the center by offering equitable wages and benefits, as well as going “deeper and broader” with wraparound services offered to Head Start students’ families.
“I like to think about this change from an equity perspective, as it’s giving us the ability to make decisions that make sense, and better meet the needs of the good working families and their children in the community,” Moté said.
At Start Early, a Chicago nonprofit helmed by Diana Rauner, the wife of former Gov. Bruce Rauner, officials said they plan to use the $20 million award to bring early learning and care opportunities to 19 under-resourced communities in Chicago — doubling the number of young children and families it currently serves, said Diana McClarien, vice president of the Early/Head Start Network at Start Early.
Officials at the nonprofit also plan to improve salaries for their early childhood workforce, and create career advancement and professional development opportunities to tackle what they described as “long-standing workforce issues” that were magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like all schools and early childhood programs in Illinois, the organization’s Head Start centers closed during the state’s shutdown in the wake of the pandemic, but the centers reopened in June 2020, and are up and running this summer, McClarien said.
“We have a lot of families who have lost their employment during the pandemic, and some have seen deaths in their families too,” McClarien said. “But in the past four months, families are slowly coming back in.”
After receiving a $23 million, five-year Head Start grant, Chicago Commons President and CEO Edgar Ramirez said the direct injection of federal funding will allow the organization to provide services for 1,270 children in 13 underserved neighborhoods across Chicago, including at the Nia Family Center.
“In a sense, creating micro-systems is adding a lot of value, and I hope all six grantees can work together, and collaborate on best practices with the goal of creating the best Head Start services for the city of Chicago,” Ramirez said.
Back at the Nia Family Center, Johnson said these final days of her daughter Serenity’s time at their neighborhood Head Start are proving to be bittersweet.
“I really appreciate everything her Head Start teachers have done to make sure she’s on track, and ready for kindergarten,” Johnson said, adding: “I think we’re both going to be sad when she has to leave, but she’s a big girl now.”