By Jennifer Mrozowski and Cindy Kranz
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Head Start centers in Ohio are making million-dollar cuts, just as President Bush's proposed changes to the federal child development program have raised additional concerns across the nation.

For more than a decade, Ohio has supplemented the federal Head Start program with grants, but the state's budget strain necessitated cuts that mean 6,500 of 18,000 state-funded children will not be served this year.

Locally, some Head Start agencies began closing centers in June.

That means fewer low-income preschoolers will have access to the program's reading, vocabulary and language training.

And fewer families will get help with children's services such as access to medical and dental exams, follow-up treatments, immunizations, and programs to teach children about proper nutrition.

"There are going to be some families and children who need to be served who are going to have to look elsewhere," said Jack Collopy, executive director of the Hamilton County Educational Service Center Head Start. "But while we're serving fewer children, we're going to maintain the quality of services."

Four of that agency's Head Start centers - in Loveland, Norwood and two in Monfort Heights - will close this fall, and 250 fewer kids will be served.

Last month, Gov. Bob Taft signed a $48.8 billion, two-year budget that slashed $32 million in Head Start grant awards for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Ohio's Head Start grants last year totaled $88 million.

Cuts to Head Start and other social service programs, along with increases in sales and gasoline taxes, were made to help chip away at the state's $5 billion deficit.

About 260 fewer Head Start students will be served of 4,300 through the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Community Action Agency Head Start, according to director Verline Dotson.

The cuts are troubling to Head Start parents who swear by the program.

In December, an eye exam arranged and paid for through a federal Head Start program alerted Danielle Harper of Evanston that her son David, then 4, needed glasses.

Until then, she had no idea why he struggled with his letters.

At the same time that centers in Ohio are addressing state funding cuts, centers across the nation are bracing for changes to the federal program.

This week, Bush proposed changes that include a greater emphasis on reading and math skills for preschoolers in the program. Other changes may give states more control of the programs.

"It concerns me that there will be too much focus on academics," said Joan Menning, director of Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission Head Start.

"We need to make sure what we're doing for these children is developmentally appropriate. We have some children coming in who don't know how to hold a crayon."

Head Start officials say they already concentrate on teaching academics to Head Start students and they also administer periodic testing to determine what students know and are learning.

However, child advocates welcome some of the proposed changes.

Linda Jenner, educational director of Hamilton County Educational Service Center's Head Start program, which serves about 1,500 children annually, said she doesn't believe Head Start will lose its whole-child approach. That's where the program works on social and emotional development, as well as academics.

"They're really focusing on some very specific pre-academic skills in literacy and math. ... We're just being asked to do more.

"Certainly (the president's) goal, and we heard Mrs. Bush talk here in Cincinnati, is about learning to read and write. We have an opportunity with 'x' amount of children in a publicly funded program to make sure they are getting those kinds of experiences that are going to be the foundation of learning to read and write when they enter public schools."

The president's proposal is all part of fiscal responsibility, she said.

Sallie Westheimer, executive director of 4C, the region's early childhood resource and referral service, likes the idea of coordinating federal and state funding so a family's effort to find high-quality learning programs would be more seamless.

What she's concerned about, however, is preserving the comprehensive nature of Head Start.

"It is not just a program to develop literacy and math skills, but it addresses the social and emotional development of children and health of (the) child. That's what been so great about Head Start. It takes this whole-child approach. I want to make sure that remains.''

Part of Bush's proposal includes new requirements for Head Start teachers.

Many child advocates say they favor that, as long as the government backs up the new requirements with funding. By 2008, half of Head Start teachers would have to have at least a bachelor's degree.

Changes to the Head Start legislation in 1998 required that by September 2003 at least 50 percent of teachers in Head Start classrooms have at least an associate's degree in early childhood education.

More than 60 percent of the 70 teachers at the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Community Action Agency Head Start have met that requirement.

Dotson said she welcomes the proposed changes for teacher qualification, but she would like to see additional money to help them meet those requirements.

"The Head Start community has been in support of providing top-notch quality to the families and children we serve as long as I've been in the business," Dotson said. "I think there's nothing wrong with constantly raising the bar on quality, but they need to fund mandates."

E-mail jmrozowski@enquirer.com