Northeast Pennsylvania's Head Start providers are poised to end services for more than 120 children, close at least three Head Start centers and cut their workforces in response to federal spending cuts.
Head Start programs, which rely heavily on federal dollars, will get 5.27 percent less than expected before the automatic cuts known as sequestration went into effect, according to the Pennsylvania Head Start Association.
As a result, the Scranton-Lackawanna Human Development Agency will end its Head Start services a week early for the 2012-13 school year for children in Lackawanna, Wayne, Pike and Susquehanna counties if local plans are approved.
Acting Head Start director Ann Lynady said after ending this year's services, the plan to offset a $366,725 cut would reduce total slots for children by 72, from 1,197 to 1,125; close one of two centers in Honesdale at St. Vincent's School; and cut New Milford's operation in half.
The agency's 102-person workforce would also be furloughed for one week and six positions would be permanently cut from the payroll.
The director noted 96 percent of the children her organization serves live at 100 percent of the poverty level, and 937 children are on a waiting list.
"Head Start programs already don't serve the number of children who are eligible," said Karen Grimm-Thomas, assistant director of the Pennsylvania Head Start Association. "Now we're going to see a greater percentage of children come to kindergarten ill-prepared."
Ms. Grimm-Thomas said research shows students who live in poverty are less likely to come to kindergarten with the same math and literacy skills as their more affluent peers, and students enrolled in Head Start programs have lower teen pregnancy, juvenile crime and dropout rates later.
Lynn Evans Biga, executive director of Luzerne County Head Start, said annual waiting lists can reach 700 children in Luzerne and Wyoming counties.
The plan is to keep services intact through the end of the current school year, then reduce the number of slots by 49 children, cut the staff by six to eight employees and no longer provide transportation for 80 children in response to an approximately $420,000 cut, Mrs. Biga said.
The Pittston centers at St. Rocco's School and St. Joseph's Oblates Rectory would also close, but the Pittston school district has offered to provide space for some of the services.
Despite decreased capacity, people interested in Head Start for their children should still apply because hundreds of new slots open each year, Mrs. Biga said.
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