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Schools COO Will Clark.
New Haven’s Head Start Program has misallocated $510,000, failed to provide health screenings for all children, and violated federal law in 16 different ways.
So concludes an investigation by the federal Administration for Children and Families (ACF).
The agency released its findings, ranging from permanently unopened toothbrushes to MIA bus monitors, in two reports.
The first was a review of New Haven’s Head Start program to see if it was ready to handle an expansion of funding under the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). (Read the review here.) The second was a regular triennial review.
Both investigations had troubling results, and the Board of Education has hired a Washington D.C. law firm to rebut some of the charges.
New Haven’s status as an “at-risk” Head Start is a change in its historic reputation. The city was an original lab for the national program, which aims to prepare poorer kids for school before kindergarten with a combination of academic, health care, and parent programs.
A Yale professor, Edward Zigler, designed Head Start in the 1960s. New Haven tested the first Head Starts in the early 1960s; based on its successes, Head Start went nationwide and became part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.
In later years the program encountered criticism at times from federal funders, including the latest two reports.
The ARRA report found that the Board of Ed channeled $510,000 of federal grant money to the Head Start program when it was intended to go to other school board costs. It also found that the Head Start Program did not ensure required health screenings for children. The triennial review found that the local Head Start did not comply with 16 standards of the federal Head Start Act. The violations include inadequate oversight of the program and inadequate training and development of personnel.
The school system’s spokeswoman rebuffed repeated Independent requests to discuss the findings or the program itself with a Head Start official. She said the Board of Ed hadn’t yet decided on its public relations strategy on the matter.
Approached about the matter at Monday night’s Board of Ed meeting, system Chief Operating Officer Will Clark said the school district has filed a 150-page response to the ARRA report and is disputing the findings.
He said the charges about health screenings were valid and have been corrected. The misallocation of the $510,000 was a result of an overlap of state and federal programs and will be worked out, Clark said.
The ARRA report, entitled “Results of Limited Scope Review at New Haven Board of Education for the Period July 1, 2008 ‚Through June 30, 2009,” was overseen by Lori Pilcher in the Office of Inspector General in the Department of Health and Human Services. She said the report on New Haven was one of 24 reviews of “high-risk Head Start agencies” requested by ACF. The reviews were intended to determine if the Head Start agencies could handle “expansion funds” under ARRA.
According to the report, the review looked at documents and records from the year in question. It found that while the Board of Education (BOE) is “financially viable,” it was “not always able to adequately manage and account for Federal funds …
“Specifically, we found that the Grantee’s [BOE’s] financial records contain an estimated $510,000 for salaries and fringe benefits, classroom materials and supplies, and building rent and related costs that were improperly allocated to the Head Start program.”
The bulk of the misallocated $510,000 was spent on salaries for the state-funded School Readiness program, according to the report. Head Start was billed for $313,636 that should have been billed to the School Readiness program, according to the report. The rest of the $510,000 of misallocated funds was the result of similar billing errors, the report states.
With regard to health screening of students, a review of the files of 30 children found that 17 percent of them were not up-to-date on dental screenings, 57 percent were not up-to-date on hearing screenings, and 17 percent were not up-to-date on vision screenings.
The review also found that the Head Start program did not always offer parents the opportunity to develop family partnership agreements, defining goals, responsibilities, timetables, and strategies for their children. The Board of Ed’s Head Start program did not comply with requirements to establish a system by which parents can participate in policy making and decisions about the program. Head Start did not maintain a Policy Council or establish a Parent Committee during 2009. “During this period, the Head Start program operated with little or no parental involvement in program decisions,” the report states.
The review further found that the Head Start program did not provide the Board of Ed with financial management reports. The Board of Ed did not request or receive “financial or program information on the operation of the Head Start program,” the report states.
The Board of Ed disagreed with all of the review’s findings in the ARRA report. It retained Chris Porter, an attorney with D.C. law firm Brustein and Manasevit, to respond to the report. He filed over 150 pages of documents seeking to rebut the report’s claims.
A staffer at Brustien and Manasevit said this week that Porter is no longer with the firm. Attorney Leigh Manasevit, who took over the case from Porter, did not respond to requests for comment.
In the Board of Ed’s response to the ARRA review, the board noted that it was only given five days to respond to the findings in the report. The ARRA review came shortly after the ACF’s triennial review, which found no violations in the area of fiscal management, the board’s response states.
The Office of the Inspector General incorrectly concluded that the Board of Ed misallocated funds, the response states. The response cites an the Department of Health and Human Services’ Information Memorandum ACYF-IM-HS-01 – 13, which justifies the Board of Ed’s lack of a “cost allocation plan.”
Other charges that the Head Start program mistakenly billed the Head Start program for materials were based on invoice errors by supply vendors, the response states.
As for health screenings, the Head Start program has strengthened its partnership with the city department of health and is now in full compliance with requirements, the response states.
On the matter of family partnership agreements, the response states that there are families that are not willing to participate in that process.
The Head Start director provides regular written program and financial updates to the Board of Ed, the response states.
The response concludes with a total rejection of the findings of the review and an objection to the limited time the Board of Ed was given to respond to the charges.
Triennial Review
From Oct. 25 to 30, the Administration for Children and Families conducted on-site monitoring as part of its triennial review of the New Haven Board of Ed’s Head Start program. The monitoring uncovered 16 violations of the standards of the Head Start Act, from a failure to promote dental hygiene to a failure to publish an annual public report.
The resulting 13-page report details those violations and states that they should be corrected within 120 days. Among the findings:
An observer at one Head Start location found “toothbrushes were stored on a high shelf behind the teacher’s desk and were still in their original wrappers.” Observers were told that children do not brush their teeth after lunch. Staff are required to “promote effective dental hygiene among children in conjunction with meals.”
Observers found that the Head Start program was not sufficiently monitored by the Board of Ed. Oversight was not in place to ensure that staff encouraged dental hygiene at meal times, obtained initial health examinations, attended mandatory child abuse and neglect training, or participated in professional development planning.
Of 69 files examined, 28 had no evidence of a “structured approach to staf training or development for those individuals,” according to the report. Fifteen hours of professional development are required annually for Head Start teachers. Of 35 files examined, nine did not show 15 hours of development.
The report further states that there was inadequate bus monitoring. Several bus drivers told observers that they never had bus monitors, as is required.
The Head Start Director did not publish an Annual Report to the Public, the report states.
Clark Responds
“It was a fair process,” Board of Ed Chief Operating Officer Will Clark said of the ACF reviews. He said the school district disagrees with some of the claims, but has a good relationship with officials and will work out the disagreements. “I’m confident the program will continue to be favorably evaluated,” Clark said.
“We welcome working with our partners,” Clark said. “By no means do we accept all the findings in that report,” but “we understand there are certain areas we can tighten up.”
The alleged misallocation of funds is a result of an overlap of staff and children in the Head Start program and the state-funded School Readiness program, Clark said. He said he was confident that situation would be made clear with further examinations.
Clark acknowledged that Head Start’s health screening of children was a valid area of criticism. The shortcomings have been corrected, he said. It’s a big logistical challenge to perform all the required screenings, but the school district has worked with the Health Department to make sure they all take place, Clark said.
“We recognize there was a need to do better and we have done that,” Clark said.