Lampson Head Start Lease Not Renewed

Directors of a federally funded Head Start program for low-income children learned this week that their lease for space on public school property will not be renewed for next year, officials said.

The notification, in a letter that officials received Monday from the Orange Unified School District, was a surprise, said Sue Ko, executive director of Head Start at Lampson Elementary School in Garden Grove.

District administrators had given no indication earlier that the program, Orange Children and Parents Together, could not continue in the same 1950s-era bungalow it has leased for three years, Ko said. The lease expires June 30.

“It was a great shock to hear that it was a problem,” she said.

Planning administrators at the school could not be reached Friday for comment.

The Head Start program now serves 68 children in the Lampson area. The 4-year-olds who participate must meet federal poverty guidelines, which stipulate that a family of four may not earn more than $15,600 a year.

Children with disabilities are also admitted to the program, which helps prepare students for kindergarten by teaching concepts of letters and numbers, the English language, what computers do and socialization.

Parents volunteer and take a variety of classes on how to help their children with school, Ko said.

Ko and others are trying to raise the $200,000 needed to buy and install a portable classroom for Head Start on the Lampson campus by September.

“I know it will be worked out somehow because there is no other place for Head Start to serve these children,” Ko said.