When Tasha Crockett was growing up in Livingston, TX, her parents enrolled her into the Head Start program to help her get the social and academic skills she needed for school.

Fast-forward to April 2008 when her son, Christian, turned 3 years old and would be enrolled in the Harris County Department of Education Head Start Program in Humble.
“I knew I wanted him in the program because it’s family-centered, it helped me grow when I was his age and I knew it would help him, too, especially with his speech impediment and dyslexia,” she said.

The program continued to shape her as a parent volunteer with the policy council.

“I was going through a divorce at the time and participating with the Head Start Policy Council was life-saving by helping with the changes I was going through,” Crockett said.

Being involved with decision-making through leadership in the policy council motivated her to go back to school to get a degree in social work. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Houston-Downtown in December 2018 and will receive her master’s degree in May 2020 from Stephen F. Austin State University.

As she was learning so was Christian because of the programs Head Start offered. He started speech therapy at age 2, and his therapist continued working with him during the two years he was at the Humble center.

“His academics and personality blossomed during those two years,” Crockett said. “He even graduated early from speech therapy. He would have been in longer if he didn’t have the help from the therapist and Head Start.”

Christian is now a well-rounded middle school student and his teachers have said they would have never guessed he had a speech impediment.

HCDE Head Start is now enrolling children at its 15 Head Start centers. Visit https://hcde-texas.org/head-start/ or call 713-679-2510 for information.