North Carolina Court of Appeals Ruling Upholding Judge Howard Manning’s Ruling Requiring The State To Fund Pre-Kindergarten Services of At-Risk Four Year Olds

August 21, 2012
The ruling upheld a 2011 lower court decision that ordered the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to provide funding to enroll all four-year-old children on the waiting list for the state's Pre-Kindergarten program for low-income at-risk children. The Pre-K program is the state's Head Start program. Because demand for the program slots exceeded funding, DHHS had started a waiting list. Following the appeals court ruling upholding the lower court order, DHHS analyzed its program budgets and identified $20 million of its current allocation that was . . .