Opinion ID: 2301105
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Head Start

Text: The Department's refusal to allow the districts to enter into contracts with and provide funding for Head Start centers servicing in excess of 8000 preschool age children in Abbott districts is bewildering and inexplicable. In Abbott VI, supra, the Court was informed that the State was excluding Head Start children from the mandatory Abbott preschool program. The Court specifically held that Head Start children could not be excluded from preschool unless the Head Start programs themselves were equivalent to DOE preschool standards, a condition that none of the Head Start programs met at that time. 163 N.J. at 116-17, 748 A. 2d 82. Today, the Court again orders the State to include children attending federally funded Head Start centers in the Abbott preschool program unless the cost of doing so is demonstrably more expensive than other high-quality alternatives, ante at 555, 790 A. 2d at 853, but the Court again provides no mechanism for a remedy if the State persists in its incomprehensible refusal to negotiate adequate funding for these Head Start children. The relevant facts concerning Head Start are much easier to understand than is the DOE's decision to deny funding to the Head Start programs. Head Start centers provide early childhood services for approximately 14,500 predominantly minority three- and four-year olds in forty New Jersey municipalities. Head Start programs service all thirty Abbott districts and include over 8000 children in those districts, or approximately fifteen percent of the total number of children eligible for preschool in Abbott Districts, according to the DOE's calculations. Federal funding for Head Start serviced children in the current school year is about $7100 per child. However, federal regulations require that Head Start funded agencies provide a wide variety of services for enrolled children including nutrition, social services, health and mental health, and transportation. Children enrolled in Head Start programs undergo a comprehensive screening process that includes evaluations of vision, speech, hearing and nutrition. Accordingly, only a portion of the $7100 per child federal funding would be available to pay for the high quality Abbott preschool program mandated to be available to all eligible children in the Abbott districts. The Department's funding proposal for federally funded Head Start centers that were prepared to meet Abbott preschool substantive standards, including class size, teacher certification, and a ten-hour day (six hours of educational programs plus four hours of day care), 245 days per year, isto put it mildlyperplexing. The Department offered to pay the difference between the Head Start agency's federal funding per child ($7100) and $9000 for classes with non-certified teachers or $10,000 for classes with certified teachersa net cost to the State of $2000 to $3000 per child. Predictably, virtually all of the Abbott district Head Start centers rejected that proposal, explaining that the available portion of the federal funds, after providing the federally mandated services, combined with the proposed State funding, was not adequate to pay for a high quality Abbott preschool program. The President of the New Jersey Head Start Association certified that when Head Start explained the impossibility of participation in Abbott preschool under the State's proposal, State officials asserted that Head Start agencies would be excluded from the program and the children serviced by the Head Start centers would be enrolled in district operated preschool classes. The Court is informed that none of the Abbott districts have included proposed budgets designed to serve federally funded Head Start children in the 2001-02 preschool submissions to the Department. The record also contains evidence that the State's intransigence concerning funding has resulted in declining enrollment at Head Start centers because children are being solicited to participate in District operated programs. In addition, Head Start centers report substantial numbers of teacher and social worker resignations resulting from higher salaries available in District preschool programs. Chief Judge Masin, in the OAL preceeding, clearly understood the indefensibility of the Department's position when he concluded that it is not possible to find that the DOE has acted in a reasonable and compliant manner. OAL Initial Decision at 47 (emphasis added). Chief Judge Masin recognized that by refusing to offer Head Start agencies more than $3000 over their federal funding per pupil, the State was committing itself to pay at least $9000 per pupil, if not more, to provide District operated preschool. He observed that the Department violates both judicial intent and the regulatory spirit if it refuses to provide appropriate required levels of adequate funding, funding based on particularized need, to deficient but willing Head Start programs and thereby requires districts to duplicate the Head Start programs to the extent that they will have to provide not only the additional aspects of the deficient program, but also those aspects that fall short of Abbott requirements, but are nevertheless a proper part of a preschool program.