GLENDALE : Agency to Take Over Head Start Program

An Orange County agency has agreed to temporarily run Head Start in Glendale and preschool instruction for the nearly 300 children could begin as early as mid-October, officials said Thursday.

Orange County Head Start Inc. takes over from Child and Family Services of Echo Park, which severed ties with the federally funded local Head Start just two weeks before preschool classes were to begin Sept. 13.

“We’re really excited and happy,” said Catherine Gamez, chairwoman of Glendale’s Head Start Parent Policy Council, which helps coordinate preschool operations. “Out of this whole thing, it’s the children who have suffered the most.”

The nonprofit, Santa Ana-based agency, which serves 2,668 preschool students in Orange County, is awaiting $1.6 million in federal funding before it can renew services for low-income Glendale area families, said Marco Pena, the group’s executive director.

“We’re talking a good 30 to 45 days before money starts flowing in,” Pena said. “It’s always a lot of work.”

Orange County Head Start will also have to apply for new licenses from the state Department of Social Services to operate the two Glendale sites at 525 S. Pacific Ave. and 211 S. Pacific Ave., he said. Meanwhile, the agency on Wednesday used its own funds to rehire four local Head Start coordinators who had been laid off Sept. 2 by Child and Family Services, Pena said.

With federal money, it also plans to hire instructors to teach the 278 enrolled preschool children at their homes until both Glendale sites can be reopened.

“My goal is to do that sometime by October,” said Pena, whose 14-year-old agency has twice temporarily managed a Long Beach Head Start program in the 1980s.

The previous agency, Child and Family Services, had managed Glendale Head Start for eight years. It dropped the program late August amid parental and staff complaints about mismanagement. Those claims have yet to be substantiated, and Child and Family Services officials have denied any wrongdoing.

Federal officials had been looking only for an interim agency to manage Head Start in Glendale because finding a permanent group involves a bidding process and would take longer. They plan to open bids for a permanent group next January.