School board rejects

proposal to relocate program

    Lauderdale County’s only pre-K center has closed and the county is in danger of losing funding for the program, school officials said.

    A recommendation by Lauderdale County School District Superintendent Randy Hodges to allow 60 pre-K students who attended the Head Start Center in Toomsuba to relocate to two district schools was shot down by school board members in a 2-1 vote.

    The pre-K center was shut down without explanation earlier this month.

    The proposal called for providing space at Northeast and Southeast elementary schools for the pre-K students.

    “We are not providing the faculty or any services to them. They are strictly using our facility,” Teri Edwards, who is over K-4 curriculum for the LCSD, said at one of two special meetings this month to discuss the topic.

    District Board of Education members Barbara Jones and Terry Harper voted against the proposal, while newly appointed board member Kelvin Jackson supported the measure.

    The Head Start Center in Toomsuba was the only one of its kind in Lauderdale County. Edwards said failing to move Head Start to Lauderdale County schools could jeopardize funding for a pre-K program for the school district.

    “The pre-K funding provided by this state is only given to a district that already has an existing collaborative relationship with a group like Head Start,” Edwards said.

    The Toomsuba center closed earlier this month but no explanation has been given as to why. School officials said the state health department ordered the building closed but officials there said that is not true.

    Hodges would not speak on why the program was shut down, stating representatives from Head Start would be required to answer that question. Phone calls to the Toomsuba Head Start Center were not returned. Mississippi Action for Progress, which oversees Head Start in the state, deferred all questions to an attorney, who has as yet to return phone calls.

    Jones questioned why the school board was not informed of the closure earlier.

    “Why is it that after our school year has begun that they have just now brought this to our attention?” Jones asked.

    Hodges said he was disappointed his recommendation to allow room for the Head Start program at the schools was not approved.

    “I want to make it perfectly clear that the school board and myself have had a wonderful working relationship and I’ve said that many times how fortunate we are to have this board,” Hodges said. “However, I feel that my recommendation was what this district needed. Not only for the district but for us to reach out to those 60 three and four-year-olds at a time when they needed us.”