On Tuesday, May 12, teachers, parents, and kids, from Enterprise for Progress in the Community (EPIC) will stand together to demand respect and fairness from the agency. They will gather at EPIC’s Sunnyside Child Development Center (605 N. 16th St., Sunnyside) at 5:30pm.
“We want to keep a stable workforce at EPIC, so the quality of the education we provide to our communities doesn’t suffer,” says Angie Solis, a teacher at EPIC Prosser.
Teachers and staff at EPIC have been in union negotiations with the agency since February, attempting to reach a reasonable agreement. EPIC negotiators have come with few serious proposals, however, and have proposed cuts which would hurt the workforce and the children they serve.
Potential illegal use of federal funds by EPIC: a concern for teachers and staff
EPIC has recently been allocated over $700,000 taxpayer dollars to improve quality in their Head Start programs. While federal regulations require at least 50% of this award to be spent on compensation and benefits to retain quality staff, EPIC proposes spending most of this money to help teachers earn bachelor’s degrees.
“Teachers and staff at EPIC fully support making college more attainable,” Angie Solis said. “We’re concerned, though, about where that federal money is really going to end up. EPIC couldn’t possibly spend that much on our B.A.s over the next year. The numbers don’t add up. That money needs to go to raise quality and improve standards in our classrooms, by stabilizing the workforce.”
EPIC claims it will spend over $375,000 of the federal money to help staff earn B.A.s this year. There is no realistic scenario in which that amount of money could go toward college degrees for staff, given EPIC’s past track record.
In 2007, EPIC spent $13,607 on staff BAs; in 2008, $19,666. The amount they are projecting this year represents 10 to 15 times what they have spent in recent years.
It is likely that the money will actually end up going to support failing EPIC programs and management salaries. This runs counter to the federal directive on how the funding is to be used: to improve the quality of the early education programs. SEIU Local 925, the union which represents EPIC teachers and staff, is considering filing a formal request for investigation of the EPIC grant with Head Start, the grant issuer.