Urban League Compromise Releases Head Start Funds

The Los Angeles Urban League said Friday that it has reached a compromise agreement with federal officials under which the organization will receive funds to operate its 15 Head Start class sites for nearly 800 underprivileged preschoolers in East and South-Central Los Angeles.

John W. Mack, league president here, said the compromise involved setting up a grievance committee, including a representative of the Urban League board and one from the Head Start parents group, to review any firings “that may be in question.”

Roy Fleischer, regional director of the federal Administration for Children, Youth and Families, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, had held up the $1.4 million in federal funding for this school year because the Urban League had not met a federal requirement that parents have an active role in hiring and firing staff members.

Mack said state laws preclude the delegating of any board responsibilities to individuals not on the board. He added that Urban League Head Start parents “have always been involved in the hiring of personnel” but that the new grievance committee arrangement will deal with firings. He said there had only been a few dismissals in the program’s 20-year history.

Mack said the funding was only held up temporarily and was released soon enough to open classes on schedule two weeks ago.

Fleischer was not available Friday to confirm the settlement, but Ray Myrick, regional chief of the Children’s Bureau, said it was his understanding that the matter was resolved.

Dr. John Landrum of the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which oversees Head Start at the local level, said the same thing although “I have not seen any paper on it yet.”

Mack said the problem was technical, stressing that the Urban League has always been “very much supportive” of the spirit of the federal mandate and noting that parents have always been represented on the Head Start policy committee.