West River Eagle

Cheyenne River Head Start Program receives award for 50 years of service




On June 15-19, 2015, Gloria Sit­ting Crow (Head Start, Education Manager) Belinda Aungie(Head Start, Health Manager), Kracy Dog Eagle (Policy Board Chair­person) and Dixie Lecompte (Finance), all traveled to Sacra­mento, California to attend the 2015 National Indian Head Start Directors Association Manage­ment Training Conference, on June 18th Gloria Sitting Crow, Education Manager accepted the award for Cheyenne River Head Start, to celebrate 50 Years of Continuous Service to Native American children and families.

Currently, Cheyenne River Head Start was the only Head Start program that operated for 50 years in the State of South Da­PIERRE, kota, the first Head Start Program on Cheyenne River was located in Red Scaffold, South Dakota and the first Teacher was Faye Long­brake, first Head Start Bus Driver was Gertrude Black Crow, the first Head Start Cook was Louise Widow, and they did not have a director at the time, the first year was a pilot project.

In January of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared The War of Poverty in his State of Union speech. Shortly thereafter, Sargent Shriver took the lead in assembling a panel of experts to develop a comprehensive child development program that would help communities meet the needs of disadvantaged preschool chil­dren. Among these experts were Dr. Robert Cooke, a pediatrician at John Hopkins University, and Dr. Edward Zigler, a professor of psychology and director of the Child Study Center at Yale Uni­versity.

Head Start was designed to help break the cycle of poverty, providing preschool children of low-income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional and psychological needs. A key tenet of the program established that it be culturally responsive to the communities served, and that the communi­ties have an investment in its success through the contribution of volunteer hours and other do­nations as nonfederal share.

In the summers of 1965 and 1966, the Office of Econom­ic Opportunity launched an eight-week Project Head Start. As Project Head Start was being implemented, through the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Of­fice of Special Field Projects was responsible for the implementa­tion of Head Start programs on Indian reservations throughout the Nation. Noel Klores was the director of this office. James Wil­son (Oglala Sioux), served as the director of the “Indian Desk” and was instrumental in establishing the first OEO programs within Indian communities.

Head Start has served more than 30 million children since 1965, growing from an eight-week demonstration project to include full day/year services and many program options. Currently, Head Start is administered by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) IN THE De­partment of Health and Human Services. Head Start services over a million children and their families each year in urban and rural areas in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories, includ­ing American Indian, Alaskan Native and Migrant/Seasonal communities.

Cheyenne River Head Start is currently doing recruitment for the 2015-2016 school year, for more information contact Rita Kym Louis @ 964-8701.



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