Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
With only a week until school starts, local early childhood education nonprofit Porter-Leath needs to fill 250 staff positions and nearly 3,000 student seats as Memphis’ new sole Head Start provider.
Porter-Leath announced last Monday that it’s taking over the five-year contract and the nearly $30 million annual federal grant from Memphis-Shelby County Schools. The district lost the contract after repeated safety violations.
The changeup leaves Porter-Leath with only a week to transition before the school year starts on Aug. 4. And families who previously signed up with MSCS for the upcoming school year need to apply again, said Vice President of Development Robert Hughes. The district didn’t explain how it plans to communicate that to parents.
“Time is a huge challenge,” Hughes said.
Over 700 families applied for acceptance last week, he said, and the organization is hosting enrollment support workshops and job fairs throughout the month of August.
Hughes also said Porter-Leath is expanding partnerships with other community organizations like First 8 Memphis to open new Head Start sites “for space reasons.” The nonprofit currently operates five centers of its own.
During the first enrollment event Friday, Family Services Manager Tracy Jackson said over 100 families showed up to Porter-Leath’s American Way center for support before 11 a.m.
For the past four years, MSCS has run the free federal pre-K program for low-income families. But funding from the federal Administration for Children and Families went up for grabs this spring because MSCS repeatedly violated Head Start safety standards, according to The Daily Memphian. The district received 3 deficiency notices in 2023-24 for “concerning discipline patterns,” including teachers who “hit, pulled and grabbed children by the neck.”
In an email to Chalkbeat, MSCS confirmed that it will not receive any Head Start funding this school year.
But the district will still provide “high-quality early learning opportunities” to 3,340 students, the email said, primarily four-year-olds, through funding from the state education department’s Voluntary Pre-K program.
MSCS did not say whether it would need to lay off any staff. In an earlier press release, district officials said the transition will affect 23 childcare providers.
“While the loss of Head Start funding has required adjustments to our staffing model, we are working diligently to retain as many team members as possible through reassignment and redeployment into roles supported by [the] Early Childhood Department,” the recent email said.
Last year, Porter-Leath served around 1,500 children in its Early Head Start program for children up to 3 years old and other pre-K models. And until a fallout in August 2021, the district paid the nonprofit around two-thirds of its grant award to serve as a partner in offering Head Start services.
Porter-Leath was one of 13 providers nationwide to be designated a “Program of Excellence” by the National Head Start Association in 2023. Hughes credits most of the organization’s success to its early education staff, and the focus on professional development.
“We’re not just like, ‘Hey, you’re hired. Go for it,’” he said. “We’re not asking somebody to rely on what they learned in school 25 years ago with no additional support. And that pays off in the classroom.”
Hughes said Porter-Leath also puts additional adults in its classrooms and centers through outside partnerships with AmeriCorps, including its “foster grandparents” program.
“Having extra adults in the classroom and in the centers makes a huge difference obviously, for our teachers, knowing that there’s a third set of eyes,” he said.
Starting Friday, Porter-Leath will begin hosting job fairs specifically for former MSCS Head Start employees, which will run every Wednesday and Friday through August.
