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Oakland City Council Votes to Save Head Start Centers On the Verge of Closure

Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan, Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, President Pro Tempore Sheng Thao, and Councilmember Carroll Fife coordinated with community members who called in to support the funding of the Head Start centers.

Published

4 years ago

September 3, 2021

Isabelle Price

Early Head Start Banners; Photo Courtesy of Early Head Start Website

The Oakland City Council passed a budget amendment to equitably reopen Head Start childcare centers in Oakland’s most underserved communities at a special meeting on September 1.

The amendment was prompted by grass roots organizations that last month put out an urgent statement demanding the protection of vitally needed services provided by the Head Start Centers.

The Council members immediately went into action releasing an action plan to stop the planned closures of the Head Start programs, which if allowed to close, will disproportionately impact some of the most under-resourced communities in Oakland.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, working mothers have been the most impacted by cuts to the workforce resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The closures of schools and childcare centers created a scarcity in childcare providers causing childcare costs to reach an all-time high in 2020. As California is reopening, mothers are finding it harder to rejoin the workforce due to the lack of affordable childcare.

The City Administration planned to close the Arroyo Viejo, Franklin, and Tassafaronga centers, all located in Oakland’s most underserved communities, which would have disproportionately aimed cuts at Black people, and worsen suffering in Oakland’s hardest-hit communities, low-income families, and people of color.

The planned cuts also involve inequitable layoffs of the workers and undermine the community’s economic recovery at a precarious time.

The councilmembers’ proposal will allocate funding from an excess fund to prevent the complete closure of the three Head Start Centers.

Rev. Phyllis Scott, the first female president of the Pastors of Oakland, said her organization will work with the councilmembers who want to find the funds to restore all Head Start centers to full strength.

She said, “our underserved mothers and children, which includes my granddaughter — who was born at less than two pounds — were helped by the Head Start program. Many other families need this program that our doctors also prescribe as being supportive of early childhood development.”

Vice Mayor and Councilmember At-Large Rebecca Kaplan stated, “We must prioritize equity in our city’s COVID-19 recovery plan, and allowing our most impacted communities to have vitally needed services is a high priority.

“Head Start is an important program which helps children, with lifelong positive impacts on their future, and ensures access to economic recovery for struggling working parents. The Administration’s plan to close these needed centers and lay off these essential workers, while hiding the information from the Council and the public for months, is inappropriate.”

Nikki Fortunato Bas, Council President and District 2 Representative said that most vulnerable children and families in Oakland must be supported. The Franklin Head Start Center serves a diverse community in District 2, from the Chinatown to Eastlake to San Antonio neighborhoods, and I am fighting to protect the services for these families and the jobs for the workers caring for our children.”

“Robust investment in Head Start is investment in our future; it is long-term public safety planning; it is the right thing to do,” said District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife. “Our local government cannot allow Head Start to fail. To do so would be to continue the practice of State-sanctioned discrimination that creates new racialized disparities and perpetuates existing ones… I am disheartened to find out that this urgent matter has been brewing for months and has only now come to the attention of the city’s elected leaders as a crisis to fix. As a working-class Black woman, like many of our Head Start providers, I have lived experience in needing access to affordable childcare. And as an elected official, I am committed to doing what it takes to keep our centers open, funded and accessible to the families who need them most.”

Sheng Thao, Council President Pro Tempore and District 4 Representative said that every parent knows the first five years of a child’s development have an enormous impact on the adult they will become. “Head Start is a vital resource to the children and parents that need support. One of my top priorities is making sure every child in Oakland has a chance to succeed. I will continue to fight to make sure Oakland Head Start is fully funded, and Oakland children are not forgotten.”

Kimberly Jones, chief of staff for Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, provided this report.

The Oakland Post’s coverage of local news in Alameda County is supported by the Ethnic Media Sustainability Initiative, a program created by California Black Media and Ethnic Media Services to support community newspapers across California.

Isabelle Price

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#NNPA BlackPress

Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

19 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

2 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

4 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke