OPINION: Alaska’s priorities must change

Alaska is finally aspiring to provide children and families educational services before they reach kindergarten. Alaska is failing miserably.

The Alaska Reads Act, for the first time, established a funding mechanism for state funded pre-K education, because we all agree that children need to be better prepared for school when they arrive. However, the state of Alaska is guilty of neglecting the system of early childhood education that has been the foundation of preschool services in our state for more than 50 years — Head Start.

Currently, 17 local grantees around Alaska use a combined $62 million of Alaskan’s federal tax dollars each year to employ more than 1,000 dedicated people. These employees serve Alaska children and families who are most in need. Eligibility for Head Start and Early Head Start is based primarily on income — for 2024, the income for a family of four must be below $39,000. However, children who are in foster care and whose families are experiencing homelessness move to the very top of the list. At CCS Early Learning in the Mat-Su, where I work, in the 2022-23 school year, 48% of the children we enrolled were either in foster care or they were homeless. The national enrollment percentage for these two categories was 10%. The level of need in our community is huge.

And yet the State of Alaska has failed us. Our program, with very long waiting lists, is currently under-enrolled. We can’t serve the full number of children that our federal grants require because we are understaffed. We are understaffed because our wages are low. Our wages are low because the State of Alaska has not increased funding for Head Start since 2010. These 17 Alaska programs are still dividing up $6.8 million dollars of state funding — just like they did 14 years ago.

In 2010, that $6.8 million represented the full 20% non-federal match that programs must provide against their federal grants. For more than 30 years, the state was committed to protecting the federal investment and provided the full match. Then the price of oil crashed, and somehow our priorities and our commitments to children and families who most need a Head Start changed. Today, $6.8 million represents an 11% match and programs cannot pay the bills. There have been zero sustainable long-term state funding increases to help programs to pay for the higher costs of operation.

Last year the Alaska Head Start Association successfully convinced the state Legislature that our funding needs were urgent and necessary. I personally told legislators that CCS was on the cusp of having to close a school if we didn’t receive additional revenues. Both the House and the Senate increased funding for Head Start by $5 million in their respective budgets, which would have taken state funding to $11.8 million — a 19% match against federal funds. In the final negotiations between the House and the Senate, this sustainable funding increase was changed to one-time funding. One-time funding cannot be used to increase wages. Then Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed $3.5 of the $5 million in one-time funds.

Over the past two weeks, the CCS Early Learning management team and board of directors made a very difficult but necessary decision. We announced that next fall, our Meadow Lakes Head Start Center will not reopen to serve Big Lake, Houston and the Meadow Lakes communities. Approximately half of those children that we won’t serve next year will be homeless or in foster care. By closing this school, we will finally be able to increase wages for our remaining employees. Tragically, this happens on the backs of young children in the Mat-Su who we will not be able to support in being more prepared for success in school and in life.

Our community and our state can do better. CCS is not alone, 10 other grantees around our state are under-enrolled. When a Head Start program is under-enrolled their federal grants, provided by Alaskans federal taxes, are at risk. Of the $62 million, more than $14 million has been designated by the federal Office of Head Start as being at risk due to under-enrollment.

Our foundation is crumbling because we as a state have neglected it. Alaskans will certainly keep paying federal taxes, but foolishly, they will not support children in our own state. It is too late for Meadow Lakes, but it isn’t too late for Alaskans to get our priorities back in order.

Mark Lackey has worked for CCS Early Learning since 1999 and been the executive director since 2005.

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