In Case You Missed It, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) visited Acelero Spring Valley Learning Center — which provides direct early childhood learning for more than 1,100 children and families in Clark County — to highlight her work passing legislation that will deliver $12.2 billion in funding to help hire and retain Head Start teachers and staff. She also discussed her ongoing efforts to support early-childhood education across Nevada.
Head Start promotes school readiness for children, ages three to five, by offering no-cost educational, nutritional, health, social and other services to working families.
Read more:
Las Vegas Sun: Boost in Head Start funding celebrated as a good start
By Hillary Davis
Key Points:
- Some local preschool teachers will be getting raises thanks to increased federal funding.
- Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., visited a Head Start program in Las Vegas’ working-class Spring Valley neighborhood Thursday to see the teachers and children who will benefit as staff receive cost-of-living adjustments of 2.35%, which come from a recent $12.2 billion nationwide funding package for Head Start programs nationwide.
- Head Start isn’t babysitting, but school for the youngest pupils.
- The Spring Valley location has about 200 students ages 3-5.
- Federal funding, passed by members of Congress like Cortez Masto and signed by President Joe Biden, makes it happen.
- “If they don’t have the federal funding, we’re not going to have programs that support our families in our communities who need it when they are looking to go to work, provide a roof over their head for their kids, put food on the table,” Cortez Masto said after dropping into several classrooms filled with picture books, toys and tiny desks.
KLAS (Broadcast)
Historic funding for head start programs in the valley – Senator Catherine Cortez Masto visited the Las Vegas Acelero Learning Center to highlight support for early childhood education.
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Dollars will be available through federal funding. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto leading efforts on funding more than $12.2 billion for Head Start programs nationwide, including families in Clark County.
Senator Cortez Masto: “They need a safe place for the children that knowing that they will be taken care of. The Head Start programs are key.”
Senator Cortez Masto is also pushing for additional funding to help hire and maintain staff… Dr. Rory Brown Sipp with Acelero says the new funding will provide staff across all 14 centers in the valley a 2.035% increase in salary. It will attract more staff, but [Dr. Sipp] says this is just the beginning.
Univision Las Vegas (Broadcast)
Senator Cortez Masto: “It’s very important to support programs that help start education, and to do that, we’re delivering federal funding to be able to assist families, communities and teachers to create more safe schools the way they are.”
Senator Cortez Masto attended a learning center, known as Acelero, that works with federally funded programs like Head Start.
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Acelero’s Administrative Assistant Catalina Contreras said, “We have over 300 children on the waiting list. So, it’s just about funds, about having the funds to open more schools, to be able to open more classrooms, to be able to promote more services, to be able to hire more teachers.”
During her speech, the senator confirmed that earlier this year she passed legislation to deliver more than $12.2 billion for the Fiscal Year 2024, an increase of $275 million over last year.
Senator Cortez Masto: “There is a waiting list of children who want to enter these programs. That means there’s a very big need in the community, so the goal is to keep working to increase the money coming into Nevada for those programs.”
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