Columbus Municipal School District trustees face a critical decision about the future of its prekindergarten program after learning federal Head Start funding will soon be unavailable to the district.
The board considered creating several new positions in the district during a May 24 special-call meeting, including five assistant teacher positions for pre-K that are currently being funded by federal Head Start dollars.
The board voted to table the proposal, but if the district plans to continue the roughly 100 students currently enrolled in pre-K, approving the positions will be necessary, Superintendent Stanley Ellis said.
“I feel confident that they’re going to revisit that at some point because we need those additional teachers,” he told The Dispatch on Wednesday. “I’m confident that they will based upon our conversations.”
If the district can’t fund the positions, the number of students in each classroom may have to be cut in half – from 20 students to 10. Without classroom assistants, state guidelines only allow one teacher per 10 students in pre-K, meaning up to 50 students could potentially lose access to early education.
Head Start is a federally funded program that provides free early education for children ages 3 and 4 from low-income families, with qualifying families typically earning less than the federal poverty level. For a family of four in 2025, that would be about $32,150 a year, according to federal poverty guidelines.
Ellis said he was notified by the Institute of Community Services – the nonprofit that administers federal Head Start grants locally – that funding for the grant covering the five assistant positions will end June 30.
Executive Director Eloise McClinton told The Dispatch that ICS has a blended partnership with the school, meaning the nonprofit supplies funding for five teacher assistants while CMSD provides the teachers, allowing for a greater number of students to be served.
But with federal standards and requirements changing, McClinton said the nonprofit could no longer afford to keep up with the rising obligations.
“There were more standards that were causing our agency to readjust our services and salaries, so we had to make some changes in lowering the amount of children in which we were funding,” she said. “That’s why we’re ending blended services, because we had more obligations that we had to work with. … This year will be the last time that we will be blending.”
Adam Minichino, public information officer for the Lowndes County School District, told The Dispatch he’s unaware of any changes with the district’s prekindergarten funding.
Communications Director Haley Montgomery said the same for Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District.
“We haven’t heard anything that’s making us anticipate any changes to the current pre-K funding that we have now,” she told The Dispatch on Wednesday.
Uncertain future for Head Start nationwide
Ellis said he’s concerned about how a loss of funding – or a subsequent reduction in the number of students served – could affect both children and the district in the long term. He said early education has been a focus for the district for the past two years in an effort to prepare children for kindergarten and to maintain the district’s accountability rating.
“Prekindergarten provides some skills … that are going to allow students to have a pretty solid foundation,” Ellis said. “I think that we really have to be cognizant of the decisions we make … because that’s going to have a direct impact on our accountability because we will get those students eventually.”
While the current change only affects blended partnerships, McClinton is worried future cuts could impact early learning in every school district.
“Now we are hearing that our president at this point is indicating that he’s not putting any funding for Head Start nationwide,” she said. “So that gives us another big hurdle that we are looking at.”
A leaked internal draft budget document for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start, includes completely defunding the program by 2026. The draft, which would require congressional approval, argues the move aligns with the Trump administration’s goal of shifting education decisions to states and parents.
“The federal government should not be in the business of mandating curriculum, locations and performance standards for any form of education,” the document reads, according to reporting from the Associated Press.
As ICS prepares to celebrate Head Start’s 60th anniversary this month, McClinton is staying optimistic about the program’s future.
“We’re looking for Head Start to stay for 60 more years hopefully,” she said. “I feel that we have worked well with the school districts and all other resources within, and we want to continue to do what we can to ensure that all of our children get the best services necessary.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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