Head Start director says program must reduce some slots amid rising homelessness and staff turnover

Kathy Lutzwick presented a change-in-scope request for the district’s Head Start program, saying the district has met a full-enrollment initiative since July 2023 but now faces rising family instability.

"We have seen this year increase as far as number of children who are categorized as homeless, number of families who are going through housing insecurity... the number of children who have dropped from the program because of those reasons is, like, doubled from last year," Lutzwick said, explaining the operational pressures that informed the request.

She told trustees that Head Start is seeing increased CPS involvement and foster-care churn and that the program’s workload and staff stressors rose this year. Lutzwick said the program has experienced higher than normal turnover since the COVID years and that staffing attrition could reach about 10% based on current retention signals.

Lutzwick said the policy council reviewed the proposed flexibility and approved it by a majority vote — not unanimously — and that the item will come to the board as an action item for final approval.

Board members asked whether small slot adjustments (reducing one or two slots in specific classes) are meaningful operationally; Lutzwick said staff input and teacher recommendations informed the specific numbers and that the district tried to avoid cutting too many slots while giving the program breathing room for quality maintenance.

No final board action on the change-in-scope was taken during the presentation; the item will return as a board action item with policy-council documentation.