Head Start classes and home visits resume on Jan. 19, 2005

Head Start classes and home visits for the Spring Term will resume Jan. 19 in the nine-county Green Hills area.

Head Start, sponsored by North Central Missouri College of Trenton, operates 11 centers and seven home base programs in this region, including a center located in Gallatin. In addition, Home Visitors visit rural homes in the Green Hills counties bringing educational activities to children and families in their homes.

Begun in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty, Head Start has since provided comprehensive child and family development services to millions of children. Studies have shown that Head Start has made an impressive impact not only on improving each child’s success in school, but on their preventative health care, nutritional habits and upon their parents as well.

The local program, which is funded to serve 277 children, at least 10% of whom receive special services because of disabilities, provides early childhood education activities designed to prepare children for public school.

Each child obtains medical and dental examinations, and parents are helped to bring the child’s immunizations up-to-date before kindergarten. “To clarify our objective for school readiness, Head Start focuses energy on the entire child, his family, and his environment, rather than exclusively his ability to count to 10,” commented Beverly Hooker, Head Start director.

In Gallatin, children attend classes at the Head Start Center located at 502 South Olive Street. The teacher, along with the rest of the staff, plans individually to meet each child and family’s needs. For more information contact: Vicky Hiley, teacher at 660-663-8976.