CHARLESTON -- More than $2 billion in federal stimulus money is heading to the nation's Head Start program.
For West Virginia, that means more resources to help thousands of low-income children and families get a leg up on education.
Lilly Prieto's 3-year old son is in Head Start at the Martin Luther King Center in Charleston. H's already learned more than his ABC's and 1-2-3s.
"He's learned to interact with kids. We had big issues the first couple of day of school. He wouldn't get on the bus. He screamed and hollered and screamed. But now he loves school." said Lilly Prieto of Charleston.
Head Start prepares 3- and 4-year olds for success in kindergarten and to lay the foundation for life-long learning by also helping their parents.
"If you needed to take the kids to the doctor's and stuff, they provide transportation for you." said Phebea Specht of Webster County.
The director of the federal Head Start program told state association members that West Virginia has been a leader in early childhood education by collaborating with other childcare and pre-k programs.
That collaboration will increase as school-based pre-K programs become available for all 4-year olds by the year 2012.
"This mandate on pre-K in the public school can only be a positive thing because it can help our Head Start programs to collaborate and to provide the best practices and the resources that the local public schools need." says Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, Director of the U.S. Office of Head Start.
"All that we want you to see when you open the door are children. Not Head Start children. Not pre-K children. Not special needs children. We just want you to see children that are in school and their parents are involved." said Karen Williams, director of the Kanawha County Schools Head Start.
For mothers like Lilly Prieto, anything that gives her children a "head start" is heading in the right direction.Head Start was created in 1965 as part of the Johnson administration's war on poverty.
