Harriett Romo, associate professor of sociology and principal investigator for the UTSA Head
Start-Higher Education Latino Service Partnership, and Richard Diem, vice president of K-16
initiatives and honors program, were among the speakers at a news conference at the
Downtown Campus announcing a $130,000 grant from the Department of Health and Human
Services that UTSA and five South Texas agencies will use to help Head Start and Early Head
Start teachers and staff complete college degrees. At right, Romo (in red at lower left) joined
representatives from five South Texas agencies.
UTSA receives federal grant to help Head Start teachers complete degrees
(October 25, 2001)--UTSA will collaborate with five South Texas agencies in a federally funded effort to help Head Start teachers and staff complete a college degree.
Through the UTSA Head Start-Higher Education Hispanic Latino Service Partnership, the university will develop and implement two levels of summer institutes to meet the educational needs of teachers, counselors, social workers and center directors from both Head Start and Early Head Start programs that serve predominantly Hispanic clients.
One level will target those with little or no college experience, providing college readiness skills and assistance with degree planning that leads to an associate's degree with a concentration in early childhood development. The degree program would be completed at San Antonio College, one of UTSA's partners in the endeavor.
The second will address the needs of staff and teachers who already have an associate's degree or sufficient college credits to move toward a bachelor's degree and early childhood certification.
Institute participants will be selected by the Head Start and Early Head Start programs based on criteria developed by the partnership agencies. It is expected that the selected teachers will become leaders in their respective Head Start programs and will encourage others to pursue higher education.
The participants, who will come from as far away as the Rio Grande Valley and Winter Garden areas, will take six hours of concentrated studies in early childhood education, child development and family and community studies. Courses will be taught at the UTSA Downtown Campus under the auspices of programs in the College of Education and Human Development and the College of Liberal and Fine Arts.
Participants will also take part in a learning community with their peers, and the program will provide them with textbooks, housing and a stipend. The project will include a distance-learning component that will allow participants to complete core courses at or near their Head Start sites during the regular academic year.
All classes will emphasize knowledge about the language and culture of Hispanic children, according to principal investigator Harriett Romo, who is an associate professor of sociology at UTSA.
"The Head Start Bureau is requiring that half of all Head Start teachers have a college degree in early childhood education or a related field by the year 2003," said Romo.
"In the city of San Antonio, only about a dozen out of more than 300 teachers have such degrees, and the statistics are similar among other Head Start programs in South Texas," she said.
Another project partner, Community Action Inc. in San Marcos, has 63 Head Start-Early Head Start teachers, but only five have associate's or bachelor's degrees, while the Laredo-based Texas Migrant Council Inc. has identified 80 home-based teachers in the Texas Winter Garden area and 45 in the Rio Grande who lack bachelor's degrees.
"These individuals are often women who have missed out on completing their educations, but who have the ability and desire to do more. The goal of our project is to make it as easy as possible for all participants to complete their education," said Romo.
Initial funding for the project is $130,000 for one year. Based on the first year's results, Romo said the project may receive three years of additional funding. She added the programs developed through the UTSA grant may also become models for other areas of the country.
The UTSA-Head Start partnership is one of five nationwide to be funded this year by the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children. Other partners in the UTSA project are AVANCE; the City of San Antonio Department of Community Initiatives and Parent-Child Inc.; Community Action Inc. of Hays, Caldwell and Blanco counties; San Antonio College; and the Texas Migrant Council Inc.
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