HUNTINGTON BEACH : School to Provide Head Start Space

By ROBERT BARKER

Nov. 21, 1992 12 AM PT

Ocean View School District trustees agreed this week to host a Head Start education program at Oak View Elementary School, which is in a low-income neighborhood that has a high percentage of single parents.

Head Start is a federal program that is aimed at preparing 4-year-old children for kindergarten while also offering language and nutrition workshops to parents, officials said.

Classes are scheduled to start next September if officials with Orange County Head Start Inc. receive expanded federal funding.

County Head Start officials, in their request for additional funds, were required to include a three- to five-year agreement with the Ocean View district to provide the space.

Marco T. Pena, Orange County Head Start executive director, told Ocean View officials that two or three portable buildings will be required.

Each unit is about 1,500 square feet and will house a total of about 100 children, he said.

Head Start pays for all set-up charges incurred by the installation of the modular units, including water, sewer and electricity hookups.

“Some of the kids are not coming to school prepared for kindergarten,” Carol Kanode, Ocean View board president, said Friday. “They don’t have the same tools that other children have and they need that extra boost to be ready for school.”

Head Start classes are 3 1/2 hours daily and are scheduled mornings and afternoons, from September to June, according to Lynda Gonzales, a secretary of the Huntington Beach division of the federal program.

The children are taught their colors and numbers and other subjects that prepare them for school, Gonzales said.

Orange County Head Start is serving 2,549 children for the current school year, officials said.

The student population represents many ethnic backgrounds. Minorities make up 90% of the student population. Sixty-four percent of the children are Latino.

About 170 children are attending Head Start programs in Huntington Beach at the former Wardlow School site at 9191 Pioneer Drive.