Brenda Azure cuddles her tribe's future at the Stone Child College Day Care Center: Brittany Belgarde, Jerome Big Knife, Preston Watson, and Tamera Enemy Hunter. 1997 photo by Lee Marmon

Head Start was launched in 1965 as a comprehensive child development program serving low-income children and their families. Head Start has successfully improved the lives of many low-income children and their families, according to parents surveyed by the agency. Until recently, however, instructors needed only certificates to teach. Now Congress has told Head Start programs that by the year 2003, more than half of their teachers must have at least an associate degree in Early Childhood Education. This might be difficult for American Indian Head Start programs and for Migrant Head Start personnel, who are often low income themselves and who live in rural areas, far from universities. Nevertheless, the American Indian Program Branch expects the programs that it funds to meet or exceed that goal, according to Dr. Helen Scheirbeck. Since 1995, Scheirbeck, a member of the Lumbee tribe, has been chief of the American Indian Program Branch (U.S. Administration for Children and Families).

The federal government sees tribal colleges and universities as natural allies in its efforts to professionalize Head Start services. Based on the reservations, the tribal colleges offer coursework that is culturally responsive to the needs of the American Indian student and the communities they serve. The National Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and Expansion believes that more Head Start staff should reflect the language and culture of the children and families served.

Degree programs can provide the skills necessary to deal with the needs of modern families, which are much more complicated than they were when the program was born more than 30 years ago. Nationwide, Head Start encounters children who have lived with violence and substance abuse, and some of them are born with the effects of their parents’ drinking and drug use. Their families sometimes lack homes, education, and jobs. Today we have new knowledge about the importance of the first three years of life and about the continuum of developmental and comprehensive services needed before school, according to the committee’s report, “Creating a 21^st Century Head Start,” published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1993.

To begin educating Head Start personnel in their areas, six tribal colleges were awarded a total of $750,000 for the first year of a possible three-year project last year. The American Indian Program Branch (AIPB) plans to award an additional $1 million towards new grants for six or seven more tribal colleges this year. In addition, another tribal college, Bay Mills, has been funded to provide Internet-based education to Head Start personnel across the country.

Stone Child College President Steve Galbavy is glad to see the emphasis upon education, and he hopes it continues. “Many of the ladies who work at day care centers provide wonderful warmth and attention,” he said. With degrees, however, Head Start becomes more of an educational facility. “It is imperative that this grant program is not a flash in the pan idea but that it sticks around for awhile,” he said. Stone Child College works with the Rocky Boy Public School System. There are three Head Start centers and two day care centers on the reservation in central Montana. Stone Child includes personnel from these centers as well as parents and community members in its Head Start educational program. He hopes that by getting them started with associate degrees, some will complete bachelor’s degrees and be ready to teach in the school system. There are more job opportunities in education than any other field, he said.

Five other tribal colleges were funded last year: College of the Menominee Nation (Wisconsin), Fort Peck Community College (Montana), Leech Lake Tribal College (Minnesota), Northwest Indian College (Washington), and Sitting Bull College (North Dakota). The federal agency asked the tribal colleges to provide models of academic training and to form partnerships with at least one Head Start program in their areas.

The colleges have ambitious plans. Most serve more than one reservation. The Sitting Bull program involves two tribal colleges in South Dakota (Sisseton-Wahpeton and Si Tanka College). Fort Peck Community College expects to award associate degrees to 20 of the 30 Head Start classroom and related personnel, as well as six bachelor degrees. Northwest Indian College is utilizing Internet technology to create peer group cohorts, which are sustained through guided on-line discussion groups among Head Start staff, parents, and early childhood education students. The model will be disseminated to the other tribal colleges through the American Indian Higher Education Consortium’s satellite network. The College of the Menominee Nation is hiring two tribal elders as mentors from each of the tribal communities it serves.

Bay Mills Community College’s virtual Head Start program makes it possible for Head Start employees to earn an associate degree anywhere in the country if they have Internet access. Students have enrolled from 17 states, according to Bay Mills Community College President Martha McLeod. For more information, see the college’s Children and Families Associate Degree on the website at <www.bmcc.org>