SERVICES : Preschool Program Will Close at 13 Sites

Azteca Head Start, a federally funded program that provides free meals, medical exams and other services to about 200 underprivileged preschool children in Alhambra and 490 preschoolers in nearby cities, will close on June 30.

Vickie Castro, an Azteca board member, said that the board of directors of the Alhambra-based agency decided not to seek the $3 million in annual funding that the program receives from the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Castro said the decision was made in February because the board felt that the program could not recover from misuse of funding that occurred under a previous director in the 1980s and because of a lack of cooperation among Azteca staff, board members and parents.

Thirteen preschools in Alhambra, Montebello, East Los Angeles, Maywood, Bell and Cudahy offer services provided by Azteca, Castro said.

Other agencies--the ABC Child Development Centers, the Foundation for Early Childhood Education Centers and the Montebello Unified School District--will assume the services provided by Azteca, said Office of Education spokesman Steve Horowitz. He said the agencies will try to offer the programs at the same sites, depending on lease agreements, and employ as many of Azteca’s staff as possible.

“We saw that perhaps this was a solution to return quality service to the children and families,” Castro said.

In addition, Horowitz said, the county office will run its own Head Start program for 200 students in Bell, Cudahy and Maywood.

More than 100 Azteca staff members--including 72 teachers--will lose their jobs in June.

Regina Jaramillo, whose son attends Azteca Head Start at Park Elementary School in Alhambra, said she and other parents picketed the Head Start sites in March to protest the closing of the program.

“How can they just tell 690 families, ‘To hell with you?’ ” she said. “It’s really sad. Where are their hearts?”

Jaramillo--treasurer for the Azteca Parent Policy Council, a committee of parents that works with the board of directors--said she blames the closure on mismanagement on the part of the board and on the county for allowing the previous misuse of funds to occur.

In 1990, Azteca was ordered to return $76,000 in mismanaged public funds, including money used for unauthorized air travel and for checks made out to cash. In 1993, the county stripped the agency of $2 million in federal funds because of financial and other problems.