Some local preschool teachers will be getting raises thanks to increased federal funding.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., visited a Head Start program in Las Vegas’ working-class Spring Valley neighborhood Thursday to see the teachers and children who will benefit as staff receive cost-of-living adjustments of 2.35%, which come from a recent $12.2 billion nationwide funding package for Head Start programs nationwide.
Head Start is a federally funded program that provides comprehensive early childhood education at no cost to lower-income families. In addition to the curriculum-based educational component, Head Start offers comprehensive health, nutrition and parent involvement services. The school that Cortez Masto visited is operated by Acelero Learning, which has 14 campuses across the valley serving more than 1,100 children — and a waiting list of about 300.
Head Start isn’t babysitting, but school for the youngest pupils. The Spring Valley location has about 200 students ages 3-5. Some sister locations offer Early Head Start, which caters to toddlers and infants as young as six weeks.
Federal funding, passed by members of Congress like Cortez Masto and signed by President Joe Biden, makes it happen.
“If they don’t have the federal funding, we’re not going to have programs that support our families in our communities who need it when they are looking to go to work, provide a roof over their head for their kids, put food on the table,” Cortez Masto said after dropping into several classrooms filled with picture books, toys and tiny desks. “They need a safe place for their children, knowing that they will be taken care of. The Head Start programs are key.”
Rory B. Sipp, senior vice president for Acelero Learning, said 2.35% is great, and he hopes for more.
“Definitely it’s the floor,” Sipp said. “We need something that we will consider the ceiling so that we can pay our staff more than just a minimum wage. We’re trying to pay them at or above a living wage. … We want our staff to be able to live just as comfortably as anyone else who lives here in the Las Vegas Valley.”
Tameka Henry said she came to Head Start years ago as a broken person. Long before she became the chair of the board of directors for Acelero Learning, she was a young mother who needed care for her daughter while she grieved her son who had just died of sudden infant death syndrome.
Though she was devastated, Head Start kept her engaged. They invited her to stay in the classroom alongside her child and join a parent committee. Now, with the rest of the board of directors, Henry is a steward of the federal dollars sent to the Vegas programs, promoting staff recruitment and training, and working with parents.
She said she’s now empowered to run for the Clark County School District board; she’s on this year’s ballot to represent a portion of North Las Vegas and the Historic Westside. And her little daughter is now a senior at Nevada State University.
“Head Start truly works,” she said.
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