Shirley suspends Head Start programs
Federal report indicates lack of background checks endangers students

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

WINDOW ROCK — Roughly half the Navajo Nation's 4,000-plus Head Start students will have to put off their graduation plans for at least the next few weeks.

In the face of a federal report that the tribe has been hiring convicted criminals some of them felons to the pre-school program for the past several years, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. announced an immediate suspension of all Head Start operations just 10 days ahead of the official end of the semester.

"According to the federal government we have murderers working for us," said Wallace Charley, vice chairman of the tribe's Education Committee, during a special meeting of the oversight body Wednesday.

While classes have ended, according to Patrick Sandoval, the president's chief of staff, about half the reservation's 210 Head Start centers have yet to conduct their year-end ceremonies. To make sure the tribe does not run afoul of the federal government's wishes and risk a lawsuit, he said, "we are asking them to reschedule those commencements for a little later down the line."

The president's announcement came almost a day after the U.S. Health Department's Administration for Children and Families in a letter dated May 1 ordered the tribe to stop all new expenditures and obligations to the program. It would have been hard for the tribe not to, since the administration has stopped funding the tribe at an average of $121,000 a day according to staff estimates.

The reason for the drastic measures, according to the Administration for Children and Families, is a "systematic management failure" on the tribe's part to follow employee review procedures that posed an immediate risk "to the health and safety of children and students."

That failure, the administration claims, meant that the tribe requested no criminal background checks for either current or prospective Head Start employees between 2001 and 2005, and has requested checks for only two-third of its employees since. Of the ones it did check, 16 percent 106 individuals had criminal charges or convictions, 51 of them for "offenses such as first degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, domestic abuse, assault, child abuse, DUI, and violent crimes."

Even the background checks the tribe did conduct, the report adds, excluded any checks for criminal activity on tribal land, where any crimes were most likely to have occurred. According to the report, the tribe also failed to ask job applicants for sworn declarations legally binding statements of criminal history or involve parents in the process.

That's one side of the story.

Kaibah Begay, director of the tribe's Head Start program, told the Education Committee that several of the administration's findings were simply wrong. She charged the administration with carrying out a sloppy review, and said the tribe, in fact, conducted background checks during years the administration said it hadn't.

"Were disputing it," Shirley said of the allegations. The administration gives the tribe a chance to challenge its findings, and the president said the tribe will take it.

Education Committee members, already exasperated with the troubled program, weren't thrilled with the idea. The federal government has been citing the tribe's Head Start program for years, said Charley, and it was time to the program to admit its deficiencies, not challenge them.

"We've lost credibility," said committee member Katherine Benally. "Fighting (the administration), saying they're lying, they're wrong all we're doing is aggravating the situation, we're denying the children."

"I'm not supporting anything less than full compliance," she said.

While conceding some failures of the program, the president's office remained defiant. After the meeting, Sandoval said that while some Head Start employees lied about their criminal histories and would be fired for so doing the tribe at the very least had sworn declarations for each one of them.

According to Sandoval, the administration also overstated its case about the 51 employees charged or convicted of "violent crimes." The report, he said, suggests that each one was a murderer, child abuser, or alcoholic, when some of them were guilty of nothing more than shoplifting; however, at least one was charged with involuntary manslaughter, he said, and another of child abuse. Sandoval would not make any guarantees about their fate, but said the tribe would be taking a look at all its Head Start employees soon.

Shirley sounded hopeful that the tribe could get the latest violations corrected soon and have federal Head Start funds flowing its way again. Sandoval said he'd be requesting a meeting with federal Head Start officials in Washington for early next week for an informal chance to make the tribe's case.

In the meantime, Sandoval said, the president will be trying to negotiate a "stand down plan" with the feds, a request, essentially, for just enough money to close out the school year. Even if the plan were streamlined, Sandoval guessed it could cost $1.5 million.

Even if the tribe takes care of the program's latest problems, Benally feared what more troubles lay ahead. Past federal reports raised financial questions as well.

"Imagine what we'll find when they get to the financial part," Benally said. "I suspect we'll have a lot to answer for."

The Education Committee agreed to meet again Monday to find out what corrective steps program staff were taking and what chance the tribe had of getting the program started again.