NEW YORK—Parents to some 300 children at a popular Head Start program center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, have been told that the center will be relocated to a smaller space. The Sunset Park Early Childhood Development Center was in a space at Saint Michael’s church until the lease ran out in August 2010. At that time, the center, which has been housed at the location for some 40 years, made an offer to pay substantially higher rent, but was refused by the church.
The center notified parents of the relocation in October. According to Yesenia Gonzales, parent of 4-year-old Jonathan, parents at the meeting were told that the center is reducing services to just two and a half hours per child, compared to eight hours prior to October. Parents were also advised that the center would offer one hour of home schooling to children while the relocation took place. The new location requires repairs in the kitchen and bathroom and is well below the capacity of the current building.
“I’m very happy with the program and very sad that it is being relocated,” said Gonzales, 24.
The relocation to a smaller space was announced despite a long waiting list to get into the program. The center was also given $1.2 million last year by the Robin Hood Foundation and ACS to renovate the current location. According to Maritza Arrastia, a long-term Sunset Park resident, people who approached Rev. Kevin Sweeney of Saint Michael’s church were told by him that that money has been returned.
The Robin Hood Foundation and ACS did not return calls by press deadline. The Sunset Park Early Childhood Development Center could not be reached for comment.
More than a dozen people from the Occupy Sunset Park group along with a parent gathered outside the center at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday to protest the relocation.
“We feel that it’s really important to keep the center here, and if they do have additional space, they have a waiting list, they should expand rather than move the center out of here,” said Arrastia.
Head Start centers in the city offer education, nutrition, mental health, and other services to children between the ages of 3 and 5. The city’s Administration for Children’s Services administers the Head Start program by contracting organizations, which in turn operate Head Start centers.
