A month after the YMCA ended its Head Start programs citywide, children at one shuttered facility in southeast Kansas City have secured a place to learn.
The Thomas Roque Head Start center, at 51st Street and Cleveland Avenue near Swope Park, was one of four operated by the YMCA of Greater Kansas City that shut its doors in May. YMCA officials said it did not have enough people to serve the nearly 300 kids enrolled in the program. The unexpected decision confused and panicked some parents.
But the board of the Mid-America Regional Council, which oversees Head Start programs in Jackson, Clay, and Platte counties, approved on Thursday a lease at the same center. Now, Guadalupe Centers is set to expand their current Head Start to run the operation.
“Our hope is to begin contracts with our new providers and our expansion programs August 1,” said Kasey Lawson, Head Start director for MARC.
The board also finalized an agreement with Kansas City Public Schools to enroll an additional 34 children from the Columbus Park area in their existing program — similar operations there, in the Northland and in Park Hill closed two weeks before the Thomas Roque center..
Lawson said the MARC board met earlier last week with the Mattie Rhodes Center in the Northland and Render’s Hope Day School in Independence. Lawson said they haven’t determined a start date for those new programs.
“We do have to do all the recruitment, we need to ensure we have staffing, some of those pieces,” she said.
Lawson noted the sites all had large waiting lists prior to closing. She said MARC is working with families to find other options.
MARC partners with 17 organizations, not including the YMCA of Greater Kansas City, to offer Head Start services at dozens of other locations.
They are also in contact with YMCA Head Start staff looking to secure work under the program's new sponsors.
