A younger set of learners may soon be walking to class inside the Caldwell County High School — or crawling.
The county school board granted preliminary approval Monday to a partnership with Audubon Area Community Services to launch a pilot Early Head Start program for infants and toddlers sometime next year.
Audubon Director Aubrey Nehring and the school district’s preschool program director Renee Williams presented an overview of the program.
The development of the program was spurred, Nehring said, by the allocation of more than $2 billion in federal stimulus funds to Head Start and Early Head Start programs earlier this year.
Audubon received enough funding to create room for 172 Early Head Start students in its 16-county area, he said.
The expansion will effectively double the program’s size in the area.
After receiving word of the award, Audubon officials met with various districts to identify opportunities for expansion.
The Crittenden County and Hopkins County school districts have also agreed to implement the program, he said.
In Caldwell County, he said, the plan is to develop an eight-child classroom, for children between 0 and 3 years, to complement the Head Start preschool program already in place at the primary school.
The Early Head Start program, if implemented locally, may target teen parents who are still in school.
As envisioned, the new program would include one teacher and two teacher assistants.
The teacher would be employed year-round and would provide home-based services during the summer, Nehring said.
The program, planned to be in effect for at least two years, would be fully-funded through Audubon, he added.
The group is looking to locate the program at the high school, to facilitate access for teen mothers and fathers and enable partnerships with students in the school’s childcare program.
The space identified for the Early Head Start program is part of the three-room family and consumer sciences module at the high school.
Two other sites — a classroom in the Butler Annex and the machine tool shop across from the Butler campus on West Washington Street — were initially considered but ruled out.
If school officials follow through with the plan, Superintendent Carrell Boyd suggested the room be renovated to provide an exterior entrance for the Early Head Start program.
The new doors and other renovations required could cost as much as $100,000, he said.
Nehring said Audubon was committed to provide $25,000 for the construction of a small playground, up to $25,000 toward the cost of the doors and close to $17,000 of equipment for the classroom.
“We can commit close to $50,000 at least to the project if we can get in the high school.”
High school Principal Glen Ringstaff and faculty member Amy Adams, who handles the school’s childcare program, expressed some concerns regarding the new program.
“I need specifics on how my students are going to benefit,” Adams said.
Her program, she noted, has 30 students participating and is growing each year.
CCPS Principal Paulette Gray spoke in support of the program.
“I was a Head Start child,” she said. “I was a teenage parent at the high school … I see positives big-time. But when I look at it from a principal’s perspective, knowing you’re going to work on parenting, that’s huge.”
Nehring said his goal was to have the program up and running by Feb. 1.
School board members approved the plan and paperwork allowing the renovation investigation to proceed.
Board Chairman Charlie Watson suggested the board’s discussion of the program would continue.
“It seems to me like we’re real interested in it, but there’s still a lot of things to be worked out.”
