Happy Valley school building to possibly house GRREC migrant head start program

By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1

The Happy Valley Elementary School building, which will be mostly vacant by the time of the 2024-2025 school year, could be the future home of the Green River Regional Education Cooperative’s migrant head start program if the cooperative’s grant is approved in October.

Since the recent completion of the new South Green Elementary school there have been plans to move the preschool academy into the existing SGE — which is connected to the new school by the cafeteria. Tara Martin, supervisor of instruction at GIS, said the preschool teachers are currently working to move their classrooms to the school so the preschool students can begin this upcoming year at South Green Elementary.

This in-progress move, and the anticipated future move of office space to the existing school — positions such as the mental health and food services coordinator — will leave Happy Valley all but vacant. That may change in the coming months as GRREC, of the Green River Regional Education Cooperative, recently approached the Glasgow Independent School District with a tentative proposal.

“No definitive plans have been finalized yet, but GRREC is in the process of applying for a grant to help migrant families,” Martin said. “If they get the grant approved, what they’re wanting to do is have a space over here in Barren County to utilize [and] to have some classrooms, so if their grant is approved they have contacted us to see about renting, or using, some rooms in that existing Happy Valley space.”

“It’s kind of up in the air right now,” she added.

Mindy Alexander, creative media specialist at the cooperative, said the program would officially be named the Building Block Migrant Head Start and Child Care Hub. She also said GRREC had submitted the grant application and the award notices are expected in October.

The grant would run for a five year period.

“This is an exciting opportunity for GRREC, its partners and cooperating school districts to support the unique transition and educational needs of children from migrant families as well as families who do agricultural work,” GRREC’s Chief Operations Officer Steven Moats said. “If funded, Building Blocks will provide a multi-layered, culturally and linguistically responsive approach to meeting the specific needs of children and families served by the Migrant Education Program. Ultimately, we hope to enable and empower each child and family to thrive as members of a diverse community.”

If the grant is approved, Martin said, the education cooperative would take up roughly six classrooms.

In this effort the Glasgow schools Board of Education meeting approved unanimously was a “Letter of support for GRREC Migrant Head Start Grant” during the course of the May 13 meeting.