President Donald Trump wants to reduce all funding for Head Start, a decision that would deprive thousands of children and most vulnerable families in San Diego County in early education, child care and other enveloping services and could also eliminate hundreds of jobs in local start -up programs.
If the Congress decides to implement Trump’s plan, described in a budget document project obtained by the national media last week, this would end the 5,700 starting slots active in the County of San Diego.
“These opportunities open the doors, not only for children, but for the whole family,” said Arnulfo Manriquez, CEO of the Consultative Committee of the Metropolitan Region, or Maac, a local Head Start supplier. “It will absolutely not improve the community by eliminating it like that.”
Head Start was launched six decades ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson as part of his war against poverty. It is supposed to be a complete program which not only provides early education and child care for low -income children, infants to 5 -year -old children, but also enveloping services to help families of children get out of poverty.
Local HEAD Start programs provide health screening, meals, diapers and food distributions, mental health services and housing references, vocational training, education and more. Families can be eligible for Head Start if they are at the federal poverty line or below, currently $ 32,150 for a family of four.
“When you adapt to this cost of living, children in Head Start in California are confronted with the deepest poverty,” said Avo Madkessian, executive director of the first non -profit California for children.
The last exercise, California received $ 1.7 billion in HEAD Start funding and served 84,200 children, according to the Head Start website. This included 2,800 young people with foster family, more than 8,000 children suffering from homelessness and 53,000 learners in English.
The preliminary budgetary document indicates that the White House wishes to eliminate Head Start to give education to states and parents and think that the federal government “should not be imposing study programs, locations and performance standards for any form of education,” reported the Associated Press.
But children’s defenders say that the cutting head cutting will eliminate a rescue buoy for the well-being of health and the development of vulnerable children.
They also say that this decision will also require an economic assessment in the San Diego region: if they lose childcare services, parents Head Start may not be able to work.
Hundreds of local Head Start jobs are said to be eliminated.
The association of neighborhood houses – the largest supplier head start in San Diego, serving 5,000 children – obtains $ 97 million per year in financing Head Start and employs 1,200 people for HEAD Start programs, including teachers, mental health agents, nutritionists, social services workers, administrators and guards, said Damon Carson the association.
MAAC, which receives 31 million dollars in annual financing Head Start, employs 320 employees Head Start and also pays 180 other employees who are subcontracted to provide Head Start services, said Manriquez. Maac serves over 1,100 children at Head Start.
If Maac loses this funding, it would surely be to close its Head Start programs, said Manriquez. “We would not be able to do fundraising to continue this work-absolutely not,” he said.
California is already faced with a serious shortage of childcare services, and Head Start already gets too little funding to provide slots to all eligible families. There are now 900 families on the waiting list of the House Association district, said Carson.
“Head Start funding was not already serving all children in poverty in California. And now the prospect of being completely funded would be catastrophic for our state,” said Madkessian.
Arisha Peabody, who moved to San Diego two years ago, said that Head Start allowed her to win his certification of required equivalence and apply for jobs – she has several diplomas in health care administration.
The Head Start Center of North Park took care of his 2 -year -old son, who was born prematurely and has additional health needs.
Peabody’s family would not be able to afford on child care for him. Her husband is in the navy, but he was told that the basic daycare was had a one -year waiting list.
“There is no other place where we can get a quality child care,” said Peabody.
The news of potential from start to finish all end of the whole, add more stress for the first education suppliers, who are already faced with fear and anxiety aroused by Trump’s immigration repression, officials said.
Compared to the educational workforce from kindergarten to 12th year, the workforce of early education is fueled by a much larger share of immigrants-from 10% to 19% of the first education workers in California are immigrants, according to the childcare, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.
And many families who count on the childcare subtentive or financed by the State as Head Start are not themselves American citizens or are part of families of mixed statutes.
“It was a feeling of fear, stress and anxiety at all levels in all our programs, both with staff and with participants,” said Manriquez. “This affects people who wish to go to work and even want to register for a program.”
Madkessian has also noted that there is a head start program specifically for children of migrant workers. He said that the administrators of this program fear that if they work this season, their sites can become objectives for the application of immigration.
Trump’s push to finish Head Start is only one of the many policies that he pursues that defenders of concern harm vulnerable young children.
This includes Medicaid cuts, which offers free or low -cost health insurance and healthcare health services for children; Prices, which should harm the price and offer of babies; And the repression of immigration, which could have an impact on vulnerable children, families and the workforce of early education.
“What we see is only a complete assault against the health and well-being of the most vulnerable babies in our country,” said Madkessian. “It is deeply, deeply worrying, because Head Start is not in isolation.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
