Tracy Baber helps a student at a Head Start classroom for 3-year-olds at the Lafayette Early Childhood Center in South Bend. Local educators and others who’ve been laying the groundwork to expand preschool programs that serve low-income students, such as Head Start, are disappointed that Gov. Mike Pence did not pursue a federal grant that could have brought $80 million into the state over four years for pre-k education. SBT Photo/SANTIAGO FLORES
The waiting list of 4-year-olds preapproved for Head Start in St. Joseph and Elkhart counties now stands at 750.
The chances of many of those children being able to enroll this school year are slim. There is a set number of slots. And classrooms are filled.
“It’s so disheartening when you know a family wants their child to go to pre-k and we just don’t have capacity,” Kathy Guajardo, director of Head Start’s Elkhart and St. Joseph Counties Consortium, said.
The need for an expansion of preschool offerings for low-income children here, Guajardo said, is enormous.
Head Start accepts families living at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty level. But, there are many other children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, she said, who need preschool.
Because of that, for the past year, South Bend Superintendent Carole Schmidt has studied progressive pre-kindergarten programs in cities like San Antonio and San Francisco to get ideas for what universal pre-k might look like here.
Schmidt has asked South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg to consider how the city envisions partnering with the schools. And, United Way of St. Joseph County has formed an early childhood coalition, all in an effort to eventually make universal preschool a reality.
But those dreams were deflated recently when Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said he would not apply for federal funding that could have brought the state some $80 million over the next four years to expand the availability of preschool to low-income students.
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