MONMOUTH, Ill. — When August rolls around, teachers at WCCS Head Start get busy preparing their classrooms.
"I've bought stuff for my classroom, getting it ready," second-year teacher's aide Ashlee Coyle said.
"I'm driving my lead teacher crazy because that's what I do best to her," Katie Cooper, who's going into her fifth school year as a teacher assistant, said. "Changing my mind 50 times like, 'No, I want this for the classroom. No, let's do this this year.'"
This year, that's all on pause as the staff of approximately 80 people at six West Central Community Services Head Start locations look for answers about the future of their program.
"We didn't find out until July 27 when the teaching staff manager reached out to us to let us know what was going on," Cooper said. "Our company closed. The money just ran wild, the board didn't oversee it, or they just didn't care, or they just wanted the program to be gone, or they were tired of doing it. I don't know."
"I was told by my boss through an email, and really just nobody was really told anything," Coyle said. "It was, by the way, you're unemployed by WCCS."
The staff learned the WCCS Board of Directors didn't have the money to keep the preschools and early Head Start programs in Knox, Warren and Henderson counties open.
The school year was set to begin Sept. 1 for up to 288 students in the three counties.
"We never had a budget problem," Cooper said. "I really just don't know what happened, why the board failed us. They all failed us."
Coyle and Cooper, along with several other teachers News 8 met with, said they reached out to the board for answers but didn't get any.
Many of the teachers spread their paychecks out over the year to get a monthly paycheck. They said they haven't been paid their final paychecks yet from the 2022-23 school year.
"We have a choice to either accept our full payment amount, which would be what our regular pay is, or we can spread our payout, which stretches for me, it was September 1 to September 1," Cooper said. "They owe me 29 days' worth of pay, which is equivalent to about $2,912."
The one email response some got from Board President Alex Hardin said the following:
"Unfortunately, WCCS is out of business. In regards to your question, WCCS, Inc. does not have the money to pay staff. The decision to close the doors of WCCS was a tough decision to make. The head start program will continue under the service provider, CDI. I sincerely wish that I was responding with a more positive email. The only bright spot to this matter is that head start services will continue to be provided to the families in the area."
Hardin declined to comment on the situation to News 8.
"Our next scheduled payday technically would not be until this Friday, but we got that email yesterday pretty much telling us we weren't getting it," Cassandra Shannon, a lead teacher of almost seven years, said.
A letter on the door to its Monmouth location is addressed to parents, telling them, "West Central Community Services, Inc. is no longer receiving federal funding to provide Head Start/Early Head Start services in Henderson, Knox and Warren Counties, IL after July 24, 2023."
Community Development Institute Head Start will take over on a temporary basis, but the teachers don't know when classes will begin.
"Hopefully we get everything up and running and our families can get the education that our students need," Cooper said. "At the end of the day, it's not about us not getting our pay. It's not about that. It's about us having a home for these children so they can learn, so they can feel safe, so they can have fun."
Mostly they just want answers from the WCCS board.
"What's going on? Like, why is WCCS not giving us answers as teachers and parents?" Coyle said. "Why couldn't we fix this if we were running out of money?"