After turning it over in their minds, Cherokee County school trustees unanimously decided free federal funding for a new Head Start preschool program was too good to pass up.

Piedmont Community Actions in Spartanburg received permission Monday to provide preschool classes for 32 infants and toddlers in the Cherokee Community Learning Center. The new program will be funded through a $1.5 million federal grant to serve preschool children in Cherokee and Spartanburg counties. The initial grant is for two years and is renewable.

The grant will combine classes for infants and toddlers with a family literacy program and services to pregnant woman in highpoverty areas.

Head Start would hire eight teachers to work in Cherokee County schools. The additional hiring comes as the district’s Parents as Preschoolers program has received a 50 percent budget cut this school year.

“This grant gives us an opportunity to go in and work with families, infants and toddlers so children can have the best start humanly possible,” Piedmont Community Actions Administrator Dr. Willie Ross said. “We see the early Head Start program as a complement to what the school district is doing with adult education.”

Head Start has operated in Cherokee County for 40 years. The grant marks the first time the federal early childhood program has been able to serve infants and toddlers in Cherokee County.

The Head Start program will be implemented at no cost to the school district, said Ross, a former Cherokee County school superintendent.

Despite no financial obligation, school trustees were reluctant to approve the new Head Start program due to concerns about the district’s ongoing budget problems. It took three motions and an hour of discussion before the school board agreed to implement the new program.

School trustees Lindley Auton and Amanda Knowles peppered Ross with multiple questions concerning the district’s financial obligations and the impact Head Start would have on existing programs.

Auton said she wanted the opportunity to visit a Head Start program and would have preferred to vote at the Feb. 8 meeting.

“I think Head Start is a wonderful program,” Auton said. “I just have a lot of questions and wanted to take a look at it before we make a decision.”