Michael1942's Blog

A non profit gone rogue!It sad to report the end of the Springfield Urban Leagues’s mission to service the community. This comes on the heels of the Head Start program’s conversion to a Union Shop. The primary reason for this conversion is the mismanagement of the program. For several years the Head Start program has suffered in aged and outdated buildings. The upper management has seemingly mis handled funding with poor judgement in spending on rental of facilities which were barely up to standards, inadequate staffing in class rooms and poor to unsafe conditions in the buildings. Currently 1 site is shut down due an extreme mold problem which unfortunately was ignored last year while several people including a teacher were ill for several months. There are other issues involving the basic cleaning maintenance in all of the buildings.There have been several opportunities to move the program to better housing but management declined to entertain the idea of using available funding to take better care of their clients ( the children and their parents) or the workers. Now after eliminating 30 plus positions to try and break the Union effort, they are stalling in the bargaining process. During all of this time the same mismanagement continues and the board members, the policy council (the parent\ staff component) have been kept in the dark as to the Union situation and the actual problems confronting the head start program. The local papers have coverd this minimally and it should be covered better than the statehouse as this issue affects almost all of the citizenry of Springfield of Head Start age and their parents. This seems to be a non profit gone rogue!