YMCA decision to close Kansas City Head Start centers stuns parents: ‘Really shocked’
Angela Douglas at first thought the email was spam, a fake. The Head Start her 4-year-old son attends couldn’t actually be closing, could it?
But it was real.
“I was just really upset. We were all really upset. We were all really shocked,” Douglas, a Liberty resident, said.
The YMCA of Greater Kansas City told parents last Thursday it will close its four Head Start locations – including some of the only Head Start centers in Clay and Platte counties – by late May in an emailed announcement that suggested staffing problems were to blame.
The message stunned hundreds of families, now left wondering about their children’s future in the early childhood education program. Dozens of employees may lose their jobs.
Head Start, a federally-funded program, provides services to children from low-income backgrounds, those with disabilities, foster children and others at a crucial time in their development. Experts say attention paid to children during their first few years of life can pay dividends over a lifetime.
The Mid-America Regional Council, which oversees Head Start programs in Jackson, Clay and Platte counties, has said it will work with affected families to find alternative placements and is seeking another organization to take over the Y’s Head Start work. MARC partners with 17 agencies to deliver Head Start services across the metro and has said it isn’t anticipating a drop in the total number of children enrolled.
Still, the timing is striking. The YMCA of Greater Kansas City will exit Head Start as the program marks its 60th anniversary nationally this year. The closures also come 20 years after the Y first started offering an early learning program.
Head Start programs across the country have struggled with workforce shortages in recent years, a problem exacerbated by the pandemic. The National Head Start Association reported that at the start of the 2023-2024 program year, what it called a “workforce crisis” had appeared to stabilize but remained a significant problem
The Y’s Head Start centers serve 289 children currently at centers in Columbus Park, Park Hill, the Northland and near Swope Park. The Y’s Head Start program expenses were $6.1 million a year, according to the organization’s 2023 annual report, the latest available.
A statement on the Y’s website says the decision came “after much consideration,” but Douglas said she and other parents had no awareness the closure was on the horizon.
“No warning at all. None of the staff had any warnings. None of the parents had any warnings,” said Douglas, who sits on her Head Start’s parent advisory committee. “There wasn’t even any speculation out there.”
The Y’s letter to parents, attributed to president and CEO Mark Hulet and chief operating officer Angie Lassley, says the organization “has made the difficult choice to transition” out of the Head Start program.
Hulet and Lassley’s letter offers few specifics for the closures, saying only that it came “despite years of dedicated effort to recruit and retain qualified staff in an increasingly difficult workforce environment” – potentially signaling the Y had trouble staffing the centers.
“We acknowledge this closure brings great sadness and could create hardships for your family,” Hulet and Lassley wrote to parents.
An unsigned statement provided to The Star offered few additional details, only adding that operating the Head Start locations was no longer sustainable. The Y declined to make its leadership available for an interview.
Hulet and David Warm, the executive director of MARC, signed a fresh agreement for Head Start services in early November. The agreement, provided to The Star by MARC in response to a records request, shows that its term is set to run until Oct. 31, 2025.
Workforce under pressure
Robin Phillips, CEO of Child Care Aware of Missouri, a nonprofit that advocates for early childhood education, emphasized she couldn’t speak to the specifics of the Y’s decision, but said in general recruiting and retaining quality workers is a significant barrier for child care providers.
Jackson County has just under 53,000 children under age 6, but the licensed child care programs in the county only have just over 23,100 slots, according to data from government agencies and other sources compiled by Child Care Aware of Missouri. Clay County has a little under 18,000 children under 6 and about 5,300 licensed child care slots. Platte County has 7,460 children under six and 1,662 licensed slots.
“Even if a center can access a grant to build on a room that serves eight more infants, if they can’t find the workforce, it doesn’t matter then that they have that grant to expand those slots,” Phillips said.
Douglas appeared caught off guard by the Y’s invocation of workforce in its announcement, saying staffing had improved significantly over the past year. “It was actually really shocking to see that they had mentioned that they were closing due to staffing,” she said.
Douglas has had a connection with Head Start for more than a decade. Her oldest child, who will be 18 this year, attended as a young child. Of her six children, only one didn’t go to Head Start and that was because of the pandemic.
The program not only gave Douglas child care that she might not have otherwise been able to afford, but also helped her children gain key skills, she said.
Douglas said Head Start “did wonders” for one of her children who is neurodivergent.
Head Start “helped him understand what his feelings were and how to manage them,” she said. “He’s doing amazing now.”
On Wednesday, Douglas dropped her youngest child off at Head Start for the first time since the announcement. Her son’s teacher had written the parents a letter about how sad she was about the closure and plans on being with the kids “until the very end.”
“When I went in today, I got the chance to talk to the teacher for the first time. She was almost in tears,” Douglas said.
Will Head Start centers be saved?
Head Start parents and staff are engaged in an effort to save the centers.
Noha Shalabi, a family advocate at the Northland Head Start, in a public Facebook post over the weekend encouraged people to share their Head Start stories in hopes of attracting a new organization to take over the Y’s work.
As an advocate, Shalabi meets with families to help ensure their basic needs are met, writing that advocates encourage, listen and support parents and guardians of young children.
“My work isn’t just a paycheck. It is a calling,” Shalabi wrote in the post, which had been shared over 100 times as of Wednesday.
“We serve families in our community that need our love, care, compassion, and support. There are so many wonderful early childhood educators in our program that love and treat the children in our care as their own.”
The Y said it will work with MARC to assist in the transition for children and staff. MARC’s overall Head Start network provides services to about 2,350 infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
MARC spokesperson Kristin Johnson-Waggoner wrote in an email that the council aims to serve the same number of children through existing and new partners. MARC doesn’t anticipate a drop in the total number of children receiving Head Start services.
“To help ease the challenges of this transition, MARC Head Start will offer individual consultations to determine the current needs of all families currently served by the YMCA and offer alternative placement with current partners who have capacity,” Kasey Lawson, MARC’s Head Start director, wrote in a letter to parents and staff.
Lawson wrote in the letter that MARC intends to immediately begin a request for proposal process intended to secure a new service provider for children and families in Clay and Platte counties. She asked parents and staff to share information with any organizations that may be interested.
MARC representatives are offering to meet with individual families this week to discuss next steps. Douglas plans on taking a meeting.
Her 4-year-old son – soon to be 5 – will enter kindergarten in the fall. While her son won’t be in Head Start long term, Douglas needs to figure out her son’s summer plans. If Head Start isn’t available, those arrangements become more complicated.
She’s still hoping it doesn’t come to that.
“There’s still a chance to save this program,” Douglas said. “They just need a new host. They need another organization that’s willing to step in and take over what the YMCA is doing.”
The Star’s Alecia Taylor contributed reporting
This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
