Head Start Children made a hand print display for 2021 Head Start Awareness Work

FRANKLIN — Head Start classes will be open for two-year-olds in St. Mary and Vermilion parishes early next year because of a decline in enrollment of four-year- olds.

Almetra J. Franklin, chief executive officer of the two programs, broke the news on Thursday during a celebration of Head Start Awareness Day.

“We’re going to reduce our enrollment from 600 to 500 in January because pre-kindergarten classes are opening up everywhere and the four-year-olds are going into those classes,” she said. “So to replace them, in January, we are going to start accepting two-year-olds.

“Early Head Start will become a part of our design by the fall of 2022. We’re also going to be doing a before and after service for our Head Start parents who are working, or who are in school or in some type of training.

“COVID really affected our enrollment. We really need parents to know that we have all sorts of COVID protective measures at all of our centers. But a shout out to those parents who continued to trust us with their children. And a shout out to my staff because we couldn’t do what we do, without them.”

The St. Mary/Vermilion Head Start Program has 12 campus sites, four in Vermilion Parish and eight in St. Mary Parish.

Franklin said the agency has been operating Head Start for over 50 years.

Currently, she said the agency employs roughly 189 employees to carry out the grant.

Franklin said Early Childhood development is the spring board for health, successful children.

“Because our classes offer more individualized attention, our teachers can provide a closer assessment with each child, to help them grown and excel where they need to be.”

Head Start was born out of President Lyndon B Johnson’s War on Poverty in 1965. It was designed to help break the cycle of poverty by providing preschool children of low income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional and psychological needs.

Pearl Barnes Rack, director of Family Services for the St. Mary/Vermilion Head Start Agency, said Head Start is exactly what is says, “it’s a head start for students.”

“We know parents are the first teachers. However, if a child enters a school and he or she has not had any sort of education in a setting with other children, Head Start will teach them how to interact with others, in addition to of course providing a curriculum.”

“Some people think when your child is not going to kindergarten, first, second or third grade, you are offering a baby-sitting service. Well Head Start is not a baby-sitting service. And Head Start has a curriculum,” Rack said.

Franklin said her agency is also growing in size with the St. Mary Parish Ready Start Network, state funded program of parish stakeholders who have joined hands to focus on early childhood.

Franklin said the St. Mary Early Childhood Ready Start Network consists of St. Mary CAA as the lead agency, the St. Mary Parish School Board, BB Glencoe Charter School, the Chitimacha Tribal School, and five child care centers — Barney & Baby Bob, Yamahana Child Development Center, Verdunville Community Outreach, A Child’s Place Daycare and Learning Center and Pam’s Personal Touch Child Care Center.

“It’s a true collaboration — a partnership,” she said.

Franklin said a study of her agency showed it has a combined $11 million impact in both parishes, “however, those dollars turn over twice — generating a $33 million impact combined for both areas.”