Stanislaus County Head Start centers for farm families to open for spring season
Maria Yepez thinks her job as an agricultural worker is essential and with the coronavirus pandemic, Governor Newsom agrees.
“I think now people realize that ag workers are very important because if we can’t work, everyone would suffer,” said Yepez in Spanish. Veronica Garcia, planning director at Stanislaus County Office of Education Child & Family Services, works with the Yepez family and interpreted Yepez’s comments.
Yepez is a 37-year-old mother and has been working on farms for more than 17 years. Both she and her husband are seasonal workers, and they depend on the income during spring to provide for their four children.
She is supposed to return to the cherry and apple groves next week, but she doesn’t have child care for her 3-year-old son Mateo Yepez, who usually attends Head Start.
SCOE’s Migrant and seasonal Head Start centers closed in mid-March due to the pandemic, but now those centers are making arrangements to reopen just in time for the spring season.
Since he was 6 months old, Mateo has attended Walter Thompson Child Development Center.
The Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs are designed specifically for children of agricultural workers. These programs have early morning and extended hours adjusted to match the local season’s farming hours. In Stanislaus County, the programs are center-based, not in homes, because the parents are in the fields.
The Walter Thompson center is located on a Stanislaus County Housing Authority property in Ceres, and requires that the family’s income comes primarily from agricultural work.
Yepez’ older children, ages 12 to 17, also attended Walter Thompson when they were young.
“It’s a difficult decision to leave the little one,” said Yepez. She has not left Mateo alone with her teenagers before.
Tony Jordan, executive director of Child & Family Services for SCOE, said they are working to re-open the centers by early May, which isn’t far from the usual seasonal opening of April 20.
“We have locations on housing authority properties,” Jordan said. “We have gotten the green light to use their sites.”
The state and federal governments have issued some short-term waivers of the requirements for child care settings during the pandemic to allow them to open.
On April 5, Newsom signed an executive order to open child care facilities for children, especially of low-income parents, who are considered essential, including food and agriculture workers.
“We are working to get our services up and running promptly to serve our families,” said Jordan.
He said they want to keep the programs as close to usual as possible for the children, but some changes will be necessary.
They are developing protocols for reopening, including performing daily health checks for all attendees and personnel and rigorous cleaning and disinfecting of the classrooms, following the experiences from child care centers that have already opened in Los Angeles and Marin counties.
Jordan said they will be stressing restricted social mixing and less social distancing.
Social mixing refers to limiting the children to interacting within their own classroom group and not mixing with new people. Maintaining social distance of at least 6 feet is almost impossible with infants, toddlers and young children, because of the proximity required in their care, development and education.
“I think our staff is ready to come back, because of their love for the children and the program,” said Marissa Duran, Head Start program manager at SCOE, “But, they want to be safe, too.”
She said they are also incorporating recommendations from state agencies.
SCOE Early Childhood Education
SCOE operates early childhood education programs in Stanislaus County, as well as seven nearby counties, including Merced, Madera, Santa Cruz, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Contra Costa and parts of Monterey counties.
In Stanislaus County, they have three Migrant and Seasonal programs located on Housing Authority properties, which provide services to more than 160 children, 6 weeks to 5 years.
In usual times, an additional 130 children attend school-based programs.
“Right now, one challenge is opening (sites) where they are co-located on school campuses, but the schools are closed.” said Jordan.
He has been talking with local school district superintendents to plan opening the school-based centers, which he anticipates will happen in a few weeks.
Jordan said he hopes that some of the Coronavirus Aid and Relief Economic Stimulus (CARES) $3.5 billion for child care will soon become available to fund other child care programs, such as payment vouchers for in-home providers, to help low-income essential workers.
Child Care and farm workers need provisions
Duran said another hurdle for opening some child care locations, especially those that are based in homes, is the difficulty for the providers to get enough food and supplies for the children in their keep.
Some of the in-home providers are licensed to care for eight children, but they can increase to 14 children with waivers during the pandemic.
“The grocery may limit them to one carton of eggs or one gallon of milk, that’s not enough for all of the children under their care,” said Duran.
Jordan said those child care providers also have difficulties getting to a grocery store when the shelves are stocked because of the long hours they work to support essential workers.
Also, they need hard-to-find supplies especially hand sanitizer, personal hygiene supplies, disposable gloves, diapers and sufficient amounts of food for the kids.
Jordan said there is a need for special shopping hours for agriculture workers and child care providers similar to those for other essential personnel, such as health care workers and first responders.
“We’re the cornucopia of the world here in the Central Valley,” said Jordan, “We should be taking care of our Ag workers who are working so hard to keep food on our plates.”
To donate items or find additional information about Stanislaus County Office of Education Head Start programs visit: https://www.stancoe.org/division/child-family-services/educating-children/migrant-and-seasonal-head-start-mshs
This story was produced with financial support from The Stanislaus County Office of Education and the Stanislaus Community Foundation, along with the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative. The Modesto Bee maintains full editorial control of this work.
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
