The Brownwood Independent School District is taking over the area’s Head Start program starting in July and is currently working to fill 30 positions. BISD Superintendent Reece Blincoe said that the district is taking over the program through a federal grant.
Blincoe said that Central Texas Opportunities, who formerly operated the Head Start program until recently, had to let their employees go after losing the funding. BISD will hold a job fair on July 2nd from 9 AM – 2 PM at the BISD Central Office to help fill 30 needed positions.
He said that Head Start is operated through two separate programs, the infant and toddler helps kids from birth to 3 years old while the other program helps prepare 4-year-olds for kindergarten. The programs will be operated at the same locations as before and all inventory associated with Head Start will be turned over to the district.
“The 4-year-old program will run in correlation with the school calendar,” Blincoe said. “The infant and toddler program runs year-round, but stopped yesterday, but we are working to have it back up as soon as possible.”
He said that the district needs to name a director for the infant and toddler program and have state inspections performed before they can restart.
“BISD is working as fast as they can on that,” Blincoe said. “We think there will be a 2 week lapse, 3 weeks at the max.”
The director job is currently posted on the BISD website. Blincoe said that the district is still working with the current director, but the job is open to other applicants.
Blincoe said that the 2-3 week lapse may be difficult for some parents who use the program because they will have to find other child care while they wait for the code inspections to be completed.
“I hope it is currently up to code, but we have to go through the certification process,” Blincoe said. “BISD will do the best we can to expedite the process to be able to serve those parents again.”
Blincoe said that there will be several advantages to the district taking over the program for both kids and teachers.
“We’ll have a little more say about the program and the teachers and be able to see what they are doing,” he said. “This way, we can make sure the students will be prepared for kindergarten.”
Blincoe said that the grant will cover most of the costs of the program, but the district will receive some average daily attendance funding for the 4-year-olds in the program, which could be up to $300,000 annually depending on the number of students enrolled.
Jobs for the Head Start programs are currently posted on the BISD website under the employment tab at www.Brownwoodisd.org.
