CCS Early Learning gives local families a boost

A local nonprofit organization providing vital preschool services to the youngest Alaskans and their families is facing funding challenges to meet the demand for those services.

CCS Early Learning, formerly known as Chugiak Children’s Services, because it originated there in 1971, provides services to some of the most vulnerable and at-risk kids in the Mat-Su community, said Mark Lackey, CCS’s executive director since 2005. For the past three years, approximately 50 percent of the children enrolled have been in foster care, or in families who were experiencing homelessness.

“We work with families who have already been in crisis, and also those who are just at risk to help keep them out of crisis,” Lackey said. “These are the youngest citizens. They have a long pathway ahead. We help build good foundations.”

Through its four local facilities, CCS administers the federal Head Start program, which promotes school readiness by providing comprehensive child development services to economically disadvantaged children and families.

In addition to its individual partnerships with families, CCS has significant business and community partners, including the Mat-Su Health Foundation, which has granted CCS more than $4 million since 2008, Lackey said. Most recently, a $767,688 MSHF grant helped CCS put the finishing touches on its newest facility in Knik-Fairview, which opened in October 2022.

The latest grant is part of an ongoing commitment from MSHF, which previously built CCS’s Palmer facility. Lackey said that support has benefited the organization by getting it out of existing available space – like strip malls and – and into “purpose-built facilities”.

“For families to have a really nice school environment, we feel really good about that accomplishment,” he said. “Mat-Su Health Foundation has supported this over and over because our work aligns so well with their goals to make Mat-Su the healthiest borough in Alaska.”

The Mat-Su Health Foundation shares ownership in the local hospital, the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, ensuring it continues to grow and meet the needs of Mat-Su residents. MSHF invests its share of the profits into scholarships, programs, and grants with the goal to improve community health. Since 2008, MSHF has invested in a healthy community through grants, scholarships, and sponsorships totaling more than $106 million. CCS was among the first grantees. Back then, Lackey said, all four facilities had aging playgrounds.

“All of those playgrounds needed immediate attention. Mat-Su Health Foundation gave us money to replace all the old equipment,” he said. “They have always been champions of the work we do.”

CCS is one of 17 organizations in Alaska providing Head Start services. But with local control and parental involvement mandated in the federal regulations that launched Head Start, each one is different, because the program is designed to meet the needs of the local community.

Those federal mandates also require a policy committee at each Head Start site, with a majority of members being parents of enrolled students. So the program also offers parents a path to leadership.

Houston resident Laura Batholomew served as a parent member on the CCS Policy Council and Board of Directors as a parent member while her son attended the Fairview Center. She continues to serve as a community member on both bodies today as a way of giving back.

She said the value of what the organization brings to the community can be seen in the strong families it helps to build.

“It doesn’t matter what the situation is, or how it happened, that make families eligible for CCS. It still takes months or years to rectify these situations,” Bartholomew said. “CCS allows the opportunity for parents to take what has previously brought defeat and shame, and turn it into achievement and empowerment.”

Keeping up with demand for services has gotten tougher in recent times. Head Start requires a 20 percent local funding commitment. The state provided that match until 2010, when oil crashed and funding for organizations like CCS was frozen.

Fourteen years of flat state funding, coupled with rising expenses, have whittled the state match down to 11 percent now. That means spending time and resources going to Juneau to meet with legislators in hopes of unlocking the code to more funding.

Decisions to “right-size” have already been made, however. Next school year, CCS will serve 45 fewer Head Start students when its Meadow Lakes facility, open since 1997, is shuttered. That’s in addition to 50 student positions that fell to budget considerations this school year.

“It’s tragic that we have to be begging for money,” Lackey said. “We have waiting lists a mile long. We should be serving twice as many kids and not closing schools down.”