HISTORY TIMELINE

history of Headstart

2020

1964

Education

War on Poverty

Program Year

Education was the solution

1965

Office of Economic Opportunity

CPCD

history of CPCD

1965

2000

CPCD Formed

Head Start in Colorado springs

HHS Parents and Board

ECE Partnerships

1988

Office of Economic Opportunity

Product of LBJ's "War on Poverty"

When LBJ declared a “war on poverty” in his State of the Union address in 1964, he was influenced by new research on the effects of poverty, as well as its impact on education. The research indicated an obligation to help disadvantaged groups, compensating for inequality in social or economic conditions.

Project Head Start was “housed” in the new Office of Economic Opportunity, along with many other programs that were developed as part of the War on Poverty.

CC’s board of directors and the Policy Council came together and agreed to form a new agency specifically to take on the Head Start grant – Community Partnership for Child Development.

2020 - 2021

You can see that Head Start is a major federal program. The 2020-21 program year Head Start fact sheet is included in your board handbook. CPCD is one of the 2,810 grantees and delegate agencies who administer Head Start and EHS programs across the country Funding for 839,116 children Served 681,000 families 263,000 staff, 22% are former Head Start parents $10.75B budget

1988

CPCD received our first grant and has been the HS grantee in El Paso County ever since.

1995

As noted previously, CPCD was one of the first 42 agencies nation-wide to be awarded an Early Head Start grant when the program was founded in 1995.

1965 - 1975

Head Start has been in Colorado Springs from the program’s beginning when a few community leaders applied to bring the program to our city. The first summer program was run out of a church basement in downtown and when the program moved from a summer program to a school-year program, the County applied to become the grantee. In 1975, the City of Colorado Springs became the grantee and in 1979 Catholic Charities took over the grant.

After that State of the Union address, the federal government asked a panel of child development experts to draw up a program to help communities meet the needs of disadvantaged preschool children. The panel report became the blueprint for Project Head Start. The designers of the Head Start program agreed that education is an important part of a child’s future success. They recognized that not all children have equal access to high quality education, just as they didn’t have access to high quality food or or their parents have access to high quality jobs. Head Start was designed to give young children who were living in poverty the help they needed to be ready to succeed in school, while at the same time providing them with proper nutrition and employ their parents in the program.

1990

In 1990, the state piloted a preschool program similar to Head Start but it was specifically designed to serve children who were language-delayed. In 1992, the Colorado Preschool Project was renamed to the Colorado Preschool Program and changed it focus to children and families who, according to research, had “factors” present in the child or their family that could make the child more prone to school failure. The funding for the CPP program comes from the state and is awarded to school districts. School districts can then choose to contract with other agencies to offer those services, and one of the most popular partners around the state are Head Start grantees.

2000

With welfare reform on a national level, the Office of Head Start offered grants to Head Start agencies to partner with more traditional childcare programs to offer Head Start services in a childcare setting. This approach was meant to help ease the cost of childcare for those who were moving from public assistance into the workforce, as well as improve the quality of the childcare services offered to low-income families. CPCD began its partnership with Early Connections Learning Centers in 2000 and still partners with ECLC today.

1967

The following year, Head Start was expanded to serve children on a school year schedule and in 1967, the program began serving 3-year-olds

2020 - 2021

You can see that Head Start is a major federal program. The 2020-21 program year Head Start fact sheet is included in your board handbook. CPCD is one of the 2,810 grantees and delegate agencies who administer Head Start and EHS programs across the country Funding for 839,116 children Served 681,000 families 263,000 staff, 22% are former Head Start parents $10.75B budget

Mid 1990's

In 1995, Congress authorized the Early Head Start program for pregnant women and children birth to age 3. CPCD received one of the first 42 EHS grants in the country and was one of only two in Colorado. At about the same time, the Office of Head Start shifted Head Start’s focus to “school readiness” in which Head Start was the first step in school success for children living in poverty. Being prepared for school starts at birth and CPCD takes a “birth to five” approach. CPCD works with many school districts to align our curriculum with the curriculum used in kindergarten to ensure that children are ready for success in kindergarten and beyond

1979

Catholic Charities -- >200 children Catholic Charities of Colorado Springs was the grantee for eight years. The Head Start program was growing and CC was concerned about mission creep as their primary mission was much broader than early childhood education.