Families with children at the Thomas Roque YMCA Head Start are in limbo after the center closes its doors for good on Friday.
The center, at 51st Street and Cleveland Avenue, was the last of four YMCA of Greater Kansas City Head Start programs to shut down. On May 9, their Columbus Park, Northland and Park Hill locations closed.
While the closing lines up with the end of the school year, families relying on Head Start over the summer are now without child care for their kids — and next school year is still in question for many families.
The Mid-America Regional Council, which oversees Head Start programs in Jackson, Clay, and Platte counties, previously said they would work with affected families to find alternative placements and other organizations to take over the YMCA’s work. It doesn’t appear they’ve sorted the matter out yet, but officials say they don’t expect a drop in enrollment next year.
“MARC Head Start continues to work to secure direct service providers,” a spokesperson for the council said Wednesday. They are hopeful some locations might be able to operate by the fall.
MARC representatives have met with individual families since the announcement to discuss next steps, according to reporting by the Kansas City Star.
Head Start is a federally funded program that provides early childhood education, health, and social services to children from low-income backgrounds or those with a disability. The goal is to promote school readiness. Eligible families can access these services at no cost for their kids from birth until they are 5 years old.
In Kansas City, the YMCA oversaw 289 children at the now-closed Head Start programs, 93 of whom will progress to kindergarten this fall. But they were ultimately unable to maintain sufficient staffing levels for all those kids.
MARC partners with 17 organizations, not including the YMCA, to offer Head Start services at dozens of other locations.
Staff members impacted were provided with a list of job openings within the network.
The YMCA isnt alone in its staffing issue. The National Head Start Association reported a workforce crisis at the start of the 2023-24 program year.
“Despite years of dedicated effort to recruit and retain qualified staff in an increasingly difficult workforce environment, it is no longer sustainable to operate Head Start programs,” the YMCA of Greater Kansas City announced in an unsigned statement in March.
The decision comes after 20 years of offering Head Start through the YMCA in Kansas City. According to the organization's 2023 annual report, the program costs $6.1 million each year.
The YMCA will continue other preschool and before and after-school programs throughout the metro.
