Newsroom
New Migrant Head Start
Thermal Child Care Center dedicated
The Riverside County Office of Education Wednesday, December 9, 2009, dedicated the new Migrant Head Start Thermal Child Care Center that will serve as many as 60 children from migrant families between the ages of six weeks and 5 years old.
Kenneth M. Young, Riverside County Superintendent of Schools, said the new, $1.3 million federally funded facility will give children from migrant families “truly a head start on life. We are pleased to be in a position to secure funding for this center.”
Rick Alvarez, Assistant Superintendent, Coachella Valley Unified School District, said families eagerly awaited the opening of the center. The center is adjacent to John Kelley Elementary School in CVUSD. “We are very appreciative of the cooperation it took to make this happen,” he said. “It is a site that is much needed for our community.”
Also on hand were Adolfo Mediano, Jr., President, Riverside County Board of Education, and Board members Lisa Conyers, Lynne Craig, Betty Gibbel, Vick Knight Jr., and Bill Kroonen.
The project started construction in May and was completed in September of this year. It consists of two modular buildings with 4,800 square feet of classroom and office space, a playground with a ship, train, and swings, rubberized surfacing, shade structures, and a seven-car parking lot.
The landscaping was designed with desert type trees and synthetic grass. There are two toddler classrooms, two standard classrooms, a reception area, conference room, work room, small kitchen, and offices.
The Migrant Head Start (MHS) is a comprehensive early care and education child development program funded to serve Imperial and Riverside counties in California. The overall goal of the MHS is to promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children of low income families through the provision of health, educational, transportation, nutritional, social, and other services based on family needs assessments. Recruitment and enrollment of children with disabilities is a major priority of the MHS. Ten percent of enrollment opportunities are set-aside for children with disabilities. In addition, up to ten percent of enrollment may be children from over-income families. The MHS includes strong community and parent involvement through the local parent committees, and the RCOE the MHS Policy Council, as well as many other community volunteers.
The Thermal site is funded through the federal Office of Head Start as part of the 2005 MHS expansion to serve 60 children ages six weeks to 5 years of age.
The center is directed by Monica Chavez-Rodriguez, Site Manager, and staffed with certificated permit teachers, community assistants and other classified support staff. Transportation services will be provided in partnership with First Student Transportation Services.
Migrant family means, for purposes of Head Start eligibility, a family with children under the age of compulsory school attendance who change their residence by moving from one geographic location to another in the last 24-months for the purpose of engaging in agricultural work that involves the production and harvesting of tree and field crops and whose family income comes primarily from this activity. Seasonal family means same as above without the family moving from one location to another.
For information contact:
Rick Peoples,
Public Information Officer
Telephone: (951) 826-6642
Fax: (951) 826-6199
rpeoples@rcoe.us
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