Preschool in Alaska changed lives for parents and kids alike

WASILLA, Alaska — She was a teenager, and the mother of a 2-year-old, when a knock came on the door of her trailer. Two women were there to tell her about a federally funded preschool program called Head Start that was opening near her home in Chugiak. Would she be interested in enrolling her daughter?

Kristine Bayne signed up. She hoped it would make a difference for her daughter. What she didn’t know: It would shift the trajectory of her life, too.

Bayne, who finished high school through correspondence after she got pregnant at 16, would go on to take a job with her child’s Head Start. Her confidence buoyed, she returned to school to earn a bachelor’s degree.

“I learned so much,” said Bayne, now 65. “How to take care of my children, how to advocate for them, how to have a voice for myself. … They help you move forward to become a better person.”

In this part of Alaska, countless parents tell stories like Bayne’s. Head Start has helped them earn degrees that put them on track for better jobs. It has helped parents in recovery from drug addiction and educated children who have ended up in foster care. And it has readied youngsters for kindergarten.

Which is why it was so wrenching when CCS Early Learning closed the Chugiak Head Start, where Bayne sent her children. In January, it announced it was shuttering another center — this time in Meadow Lakes, where Bayne’s granddaughter Makayla, who is now in her care, was enrolled.

Not enough grown-ups

The impending closure is not for lack of need. The nonprofit’s Head Start program has a waiting list. It can — and did — fill Meadow Lakes’ three classrooms.

The problem is with the grown-ups.

Specifically, there are not enough of them who want to work at a Head Start. Not when they can make more money working at the nearby Target, which hiked its pay during the pandemic. And not when, with the same credentials, they can get a better-paying job at the local school district.

In 2022, nearly a quarter of Head Start teachers left their jobs, some retiring early and others lured away by higher-paying work in retail or at school districts.

Without those teachers, the preschools cannot serve as many students. It means fewer options for parents who cannot afford child care, and fewer early learning opportunities for children from needy families. Between 2013 and 2022, Head Start enrollment fell by nearly 350,000, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in part because of staff shortages.

In Wasilla, the regional Head Start group decided to raise employee pay to retain staff. To do that, it had to close one center.

“It’s just tragic,” said Mark Lackey, executive director of CCS Early Learning. “There’s so many more kids we could be serving.”

Closing without closure

Meadow Lakes’ Head Start was tucked into a strip mall, sandwiched between a charter school and a laundromat that offered showers. The kids who arrived there were sometimes smiling, sometimes crying, often carrying tiny backpacks.

Their caregivers included teen parents daunted by the responsibility of raising children, and grandparents who had unexpectedly taken in grandchildren.

Head Start was there to help all of them.

Its pioneering, multigenerational approach sought to build healthy environments for the children it served — and that meant supporting the adults in their lives, too. Many of the parents who sent their kids to Meadow Lakes attended Head Start themselves.

Kendra Mitchell, whose mother had her at 16, also went to Head Start, and sent her son Wayne to the Meadow Lakes school. He’ll head to kindergarten next year, but she said she’s seen how it’s shaped both his life — and hers.

Wayne’s childhood has been marked by instability as Mitchell struggled with addiction and sent him to live with relatives. Wayne returned to live with her when she started recovery. When she enrolled him in Head Start, she said staff embraced her without judgment. She was living in a cabin without running water; they got her a voucher so she could take Wayne to the laundromat for showers and laundry.

“They weren’t just lifting our son up. They were lifting us up as well,” Mitchell said.

Saying goodbye

In May, the Meadow Lakes children came and went for the last time. Class started with routines that had become familiar. The children sang a song to learn the days of the week. They talked about the rainy weather, then washed their hands.

Every activity was loaded with lessons. As they talked about the calendar — it was May 6 — they practiced saying “sixth.” Teacher Lisa Benson-Nuyen taught them, too, that the last day of school could bring a mix of emotions.

“For some people, that’s a happy face. For other people … that’s a sad face,” Benson-Nuyen said.

At breakfast, the children learned blueberries do not belong in their ears.

That last week, there were small signs things were coming to a close. The classroom walls, still brightly decorated, were no longer draped with student art. On the final day, staff tried to keep things cheerful and celebratory, even as they struggled to maintain composure.

Eryn Martin, the program office assistant, called out to Mitchell as she left for the last time: “Good luck, Kendra! You’ve been working really hard and I’m proud of you.”

Martin, herself a Head Start graduate and alumna parent, had been crying. Willow Palmer practiced what she learned in the classroom — when people are upset, she can help comfort them. The 5-year-old rushed back into the classroom, then reemerged with a neon-green stuffed frog. She gave it to Martin. Then she leaned in and gave her a hug, too.

On the playground that day, some students released butterflies they had been watching for weeks inside their classrooms, as they emerged from cocoons. They flew away in the crisp spring air.