Agency Facing Less Money for More Children : Social services: Despite a plan to boost funding for Head Start, providers, such as the Latin American Civic Assn., are expected to spend a lower amount per student.

As executive director of the Latin American Civic Assn., Ralph Arriola oversees an organization that has long provided nutritious meals, medical services and training in basic skills to thousands of poor children in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys--part of the landmark Head Start program instituted by former President Lyndon B. Johnson more than a quarter-century ago.

So last month, when President Bush proposed an unprecedented $600-million increase to the Head Start budget, Arriola was delighted.

“The President has been very supportive of the program,” he said.

But Arriola’s delight has faded.

Although the additional funds, if approved by Congress, would represent a doubling of the entire Head Start budget during Bush’s tenure in the White House, the President’s proposal comes at a time when Head Start providers are expected to stretch the funds by spending less per student and thus serve more children than in the past.

And organizations such as LACA contend that the additional funding would not begin to cover the thousands of children still in need of the program’s services.

“I think most people in Head Start view it with a smile and one raised eyebrow,” Suzan VanPelt, assistant director of Head Start for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, said of Bush’s proposal. Her office disburses federal monies to agencies such as LACA.

LACA has offered Head Start services to youngsters from families below the poverty line ever since the program’s inception as part of Johnson’s Great Society campaign 27 years ago. Arriola estimates that his San Fernando-based agency has administered about $80 million in Head Start funds and served 18,000 children over the years.

Now, with more than two dozen centers stretching from North Hollywood to Newhall, LACA is the sole provider of Head Start services in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys and the biggest Head Start provider in Los Angeles County.

More than 1,400 preschoolers march, shuffle and skip through the doors of LACA’s centers every day, ready for breakfast and a few hours spent singing, making crafts, playing house, even learning how to brush their teeth. Head Start also ensures that each child receives medical and dental care as well as support services for their families.

“It provides every possible service to the child and the family so that the child is ready for kindergarten and the family is prepared to continue supporting that child,” Arriola said.

If he and other LACA officials have their way, the number of youngsters their agency serves will double to 3,000 within two years. Already, plans for this fall call for increasing the number of LACA Head Start classrooms from 85 to more than 100.

Bush’s proposed $600-million increase to the Head Start budget would be crucial in LACA’s drive to expand. But hidden within the figure, Arriola and other officials say, is a catch that slips by unnoticed.

For years in the Los Angeles area, Head Start agencies such as LACA have received about $3,600 per child. Beginning in 1989, based on the rationale that agencies no longer had to incur extraordinary start-up costs, the amount for each new pupil added to the program dropped to $2,900.

Officials call the reduced per capita figure inadequate if they are to significantly increase the number of youngsters on their rolls.

“With that money, we’ve got to expand and provide more services,” said Gail Archie, LACA’s assistant director. “It isn’t just to enhance the present program.”

“We have a lot of expansion,” VanPelt added. “Unfortunately, in Los Angeles, the increase in funding has not matched the increased eligibility of children.”

LACA officials estimate that about 12,000 youngsters in the San Fernando Valley are eligible to enroll in Head Start. That number could be even higher because the 1990 census may not have picked everyone up, officials said.

Already in the past year and a half, enrollment at LACA’s centers--for two decades static at about 950 children--has skyrocketed by 50%, keeping busy a full-time LACA staff of 260 employees, including teachers, aides and social workers. To hit its target of serving 25% of all eligible preschoolers, LACA would need a substantial boost to its $5-million budget to cover the high costs of renting classroom space and hiring support staff, Arriola said.

But with the slash in allocations for new students, certain aspects of the program have already stalled, according to officials. For example, the number of social workers has remained level, even as more families participate in the program.

In Arriola’s view, that bodes ill for the program’s future.

“The per capita reduction from $3,600 to $2,900 will begin seriously to affect the quality of the program, and there’s no way that they can show that it won’t,” he said. “We are a large organization . . . and are facing problems.”

Among those problems is an urgent need for new facilities, which are in short supply. LACA operates its programs mostly out of portable classrooms, churches and community centers.

The quest for space is “a desperate problem,” VanPelt said. “Every one of our agencies would gladly triple in size if they could find someplace to do it.”

At one of LACA’s centers on Kalisher Street in San Fernando, officials were able to double the number of students in the two portable classrooms only by instituting afternoon classes in addition to those in the morning.

Worries over financing, however, seem lost upon the children themselves, who play, giggle and bounce their way through each day much like any other band of active 4-year-olds.

In the mornings at the Kalisher Street center, little Leonardo Miguel Pueblo and his pals sing about how special they are, slurp down their breakfast cereal, brush their teeth, chew their fluoride tablets and scamper eagerly into the play areas to start the day’s project, which they get to choose.

“Let’s go to the block area and make a RoboCop helicopter,” Leonardo told his friend, David Solis. “I’ve seen ‘em before--there’s missiles on the side and a propeller on top.

“That’s where we’re gonna put the guns,” he said, pointing at an indeterminate point on his block creation.

“Guns are bad,” David said. “They kill you.”

After playtime, the children are required to reassemble and talk about their morning’s activities. The Head Start curriculum chosen by LACA stresses verbal skills, so teachers question students extensively--often in Spanish, since nearly 80% of the children that LACA serves come from Latino households.

Over the past decade, the number of Latino children has grown considerably, officials said. The number of Asian students has also risen, creating a need for staff members who are familiar with Asian languages and cultures.

The agency relies on word of mouth and informational leaflets to let residents know the Head Start program exists. But recruitment of new children--even if the program expands--is still done the old-fashioned way, Arriola said.

“Our staff go out and recruit in the barrios and ghettos of the Valley--door-to-door,” he said. “We’ve done that for 27 years. And we’ll do that another 20.”