Layoff Threats Weigh on Head Start Teachers and Parents in Hollister

In a park steps away from their Head Start classrooms in Hollister, a group of kids marked the end of their preschool year with a moving-up ceremony. They wore colorful caps and gowns as they were called, one by one, to a balloon archway to receive their certificate of achievement.

The kids who are going to kindergarten were born during the pandemic. Though some of them had a challenging start to preschool, their teacher, Maricela Orozco, said they had the social-emotional skills for the next stage of schooling.

“They’re more than ready, I can say that, for elementary,” Orozco said.

But parents of 4-year-olds who just finished one year of preschool thought their kids would spend another year at Head Start, which uses federal funds to provide educational and other services to lower-income families with children up to 5 years old. They’re upset that the Santa Clara County Office of Education, which runs the Head Start center in this rural community 45 miles southeast of San José, still hasn’t gotten its $38 million federal grant renewed.

Without that guarantee, combined with reduced or expired funding that supported the office’s early learning, migrant education and special education services, nearly 275 workers will be laid off June 30. Some 1200 families enrolled in Head Start will have to look for another child care option.

In Hollister, where 10% of the population lives below the poverty line, parents rely on Head Start for full-time child care while they go to work.

“It’s very frustrating, it’s very hard. Just not knowing has been rough for us,” Vanessa Hernandez said.

Her son, Daniel, is old enough to begin transitional kindergarten at an elementary school, but Hernandez said he could benefit from another year at Head Start, where classroom sizes are smaller and students and their parents get more individualized support.

“With Head Start, you get more time to grow and become more social. In TK, they already expect that of you,” she said. “He needs to be here longer because without the teachers helping him, I don’t know that he’ll succeed for the coming years.”

Evelyn Melchor said when her son started at Head Start, he only spoke Spanish and had a hard time communicating with teachers and classmates. But after his first full year of preschool, Melchor said her son “has done a complete 360.”

“If I ask him how he’s doing, how his day went, whatever he’s going through, he’s able to tell me everything in English and in Spanish,” she said. “Developmentally, so many things have just changed, and to me, it’s the best thing that could have happened to us.”

Melchor was also counting on sending her younger son to Head Start when he’s old enough to enroll next year, so she could go back to work as a medical assistant. She said she stopped working when she had her second child because she couldn’t keep up with the rising cost of child care.

“We did take a hit financially, and it’s been rough,” she said.

The uncertainty of the Head Start program in Hollister makes it hard for Melchor to plan for her own future.

“How do I commit [to an employer] if I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” she said.

The situation is a fallout of cuts the Trump administration made to the federal workforce, including people who help administer Head Start grants to school districts, nonprofits and other agencies that operate the early childhood education program, said Ed Condon, executive director of the Region 9 Head Start Association, which represents agencies serving Head Start families in the western U.S.

He said ever since the Health and Human Services department closed half of its regional centers, including one in San Francisco, local programs have faced long delays in getting help and receiving payments.

“We are in contact with people from all over the country, and this very unnecessary disruption and uncertainty has all been generated from the regional office consolidation,” Condon said.

But he said he has also seen the government come through with funding at the last minute, allowing Head Start programs to keep going.

“It’s not typical, and it creates a lot of angst for staff and parents in particular, but I think the most harmed are staff because they are left without the reality of a job,” Condon said.

The Administration of Children and Families, which oversees Head Start and other childcare and child welfare programs, told KQED it’s processing the Santa Clara County Office of Education’s grant application and that funding “is being awarded as expeditiously as possible.”

In the meantime, teachers must clean out their classrooms and wait to hear their fate.

“We hope that we get some good news during the summertime and we can come back and keep serving a lot of families,” Orozco said.

Staffers like Maria Corchado said she planned to continue scouting for families with young kids at playgrounds, medical clinics, laundromats and resource centers around Hollister to tell them about Head Start and help them enroll in the program, should it receive more funding.

“I promised [the teachers], ‘hey, you guys go on break and I’m going to look for the kids that you need to fill the classrooms in the fall,’” Corchado said.

As a parent advocate, Corchado likens her job to being a last-resort safety net for families. She leads classes on financial literacy, mental health awareness and ways to support children as they transition to TK or kindergarten. As part of that, she ensures children undergo dental and health checkups before they enter public schools — going as far as helping parents make appointments and finding transportation to the closest pediatric dentist in Salinas, 25 miles away.

She said losing Head Start would hurt working-class families who are already bracing for cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, better known as CalFresh in California.

“It’s going to be harder for them to find medical facilities that will take them, and now they may not have a place to take their kids,” Corchado said. “It’s scary for a lot of people.”