Head Start teacher, Sandra Bolling, top center, reads to a group of children at Lincoln Park Primary School. Bolling has been at teacher with Head Start for 24 years. (Photo: Tony Giberson/[email protected])

More than 3,500 children in Escambia County qualify for Head Start, a federally funded program that serves children from birth to age 5.

But less than 90 children are enrolled in the program.

Thomas St. Myer of the Pensacola News Journal has an excellent report on the struggles that Head Start faces in Escambia County.

http://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/education/2016/03/19/head-start-handcuffed-financial-constraints/81872534/

“There is a stigma attached to the school readiness program, which is free for low-income families,” writes St. Myer. His story digs into the stigma and struggles of the program and also highlights what a lifeline Head Start is for many families and children.

St. Myer’s story is included in part two of a three-part series on early learning by the PNJ and Studer Community Institute. The package also includes an analysis by the Institute’s Shannon Nickinson on the challenges that private and public prekindergarten programs face in Florida.

The most compelling piece of this week’s report, however, is Lisa Nellessen-Lara’s column on the difference Head Start made in her life and her son’s life.

http://www.pnj.com/story/opinion/2016/03/18/head-start-escambia-county-kindergarten/81964838/

Nellessen-Lara is the editor of the PNJ, and as a single mother in college, she switched her three-year-old son from a daycare program to Head Start. Here are the first three paragraphs of her column:

“In Escambia County the number of children at risking of failing is astronomical – 34 percent of children aren’t ready to enter kindergarten when they walk in the door. Some may catch up, many never will.

“We all think that won’t be us, it won’t be our kids or our grandchildren or even our neighbors.

 We’re wrong. That could be your child. It almost was mine.”

Nellessen-Lara’s column is a beautiful testament to the difference that people and programs can have in people’s lives.