Maricopa County changes to Head Start sparks concern for Arizona parents

As Maricopa County shifts from hiring teachers to partnering with local organizations, parents sound the alarm. 

Luisa Santana is a mother of two children enrolled in Head Start childcare, a federally-funded program that provides schooling, food, and development skills for children who are in low-income households, are homeless, or are in foster care.

Originally from Compton, California, she moved to Avondale with her mother and older brother in 2006 to start a new life away from the chaos they’d grown used to, one riddled with violence, addiction, and turmoil.  

Arizona quickly became home, but Santana’s family struggled to make ends meet. When she graduated high school, she enrolled in Estrella Mountain Community College, but “aimlessly.” Though she had no graduation date, she focused on working to keep herself afloat.

Things changed in 2019 when Santana welcomed her first born son, Elias. Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she took on the role of teacher and helped her son learn concepts like shapes, phonetic letters and sounds, and more, to give him a leg up and prevent him from falling into the cycles she experienced growing up. 

It was difficult, she said. She couldn’t work because she was a full-time mother. She ate less so her son could eat more. She often relied on food banks to stay fed. For her, the cost of private childcare was never an option – it was far too expensive. 

On average, child care in Arizona costs $10,883 for facilities and $6,253 for home-based care, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a foundation focused on improving the well-being of children. About 134,000 families fall into poverty each year due to the high costs, according to the Center for American Progress, a progressive thinktank. 

In 2022, Santana’s younger son, Ezra, was born, and she realized she needed to focus on finishing her studies, both for her sake and for the sake of her family. When an advisor at Estrella Mountain Community College suggested she look into Head Start, she caught her breath. Now, she could continue her education with assurance that her children would receive quality care and services.

Today, she is a proud Head Start mother, and credits the program, and especially its staff, with helping her follow her dreams and ensure her children receive a “head start” in life.

But now, she worries about the next generation of children, who could lose the individualized instruction her two children received thanks to hands-on staff.

At a meeting on Oct. 29, the Policy Council for Maricopa County’s Head Start Services informed parents like Santana about changes being made to the program. The county is beginning a two-year long process to transition away from county employees to instead work more closely with partner organizations and childcare centers to deliver education services, according to a spokesperson from Maricopa County.

Currently, Head Start teachers at county-operated sites are employed by the county to deliver the curriculum to children, including behavioral skills, cognitive skills, health screenings, and more.

Santana and other Arizona parents worry that this new model risks lessening the quality of care as they transition to working with fellow partner organizations, instead, and that their children will lose the bonds they’ve forged with Head Start teachers. 

“It’ll be wildly detrimental to very much in-need children,” Santana said.

Currently, more than 1,000 children in Maricopa County are enrolled in Head Start programs, and Maricopa County employs 86 Head Start and Early Head Start teachers, according to data from 2024. 

Impacted families will have to move their children from current sites to new partner sites with new teachers. The new sites include childcare facilities like Tutor Time, pre-schools, and school districts partners.

A spokesperson for Maricopa County said there are currently no plans to release Head Start employees, but “as the process evolves, the County will transition away from the direct hire of teachers, allowing our community partners to implement and oversee that process.”

The agenda from the Oct. 29 meeting states that the new model “unfortunately will require that we no longer employ county teachers in the future.”

Maricopa County will still oversee content and services offered by Head Start, and this new model was approved by the federal Head Start offices, according to the spokesperson.

“I can’t speak well enough about the teachers at Head Start. They have made a massive impact on my kids,” Santana said. “The teachers make the program as amazing as it is. I don’t think a daycare staff will be able to implement the same knowledge, the same curriculum, the same effect that the teachers do now.”

Greta Stock, a single mother of four, has a 3-year-old daughter currently enrolled in Head Start. Stock said that the teachers “didn’t just supervise,” her daughter, “they saw her. They celebrated her tiny victories, met her where she was, and turned daily structure into something joyful.”

Uncertainty over federal funding was mentioned during the Oct. 29 meeting as well. Instability in Washington, including the government shutdown, which threatened Head Start funding for the month of November, reaffirmed the need to adopt the new model, as uncertainty at the federal level can lead to hiccups in how the program operates. 

Earlier this year, the Trump administration considered eliminating funding for the Head Start program. A document obtained by NPR outlined a budget for the Department of Health and Human Services where Head Start’s funding was slashed. The plan was abandoned after outrage from parents, advocates, and lawmakers.

This new model allows them to be more intentional with their funding and create a more sustainable program, said Head Start Director Cami Foulks in a meeting posted online.

The new structure will be presented to the Board of Supervisors and Policy Council in Spring 2026 to be voted on.