MONTICELLO, NY — Sullivan County Head Start posted a message Friday that alarmed parents and sent them scrambling for answers.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, Sullivan County Head Start is closed until further notice,” states the brief post on its Facebook page. “We will be keeping everyone apprised of the situation. We are deeply sorry and heartbroken.”

The sudden and unexplained closure left parents to speculate on social media. 

“This is so ridiculous how do we find out 20 minutes before the kids get home off the bus that there is no more school through a Facebook post,” one parent wrote. “What about our children’s education and what about us parents as families and single families that provide for our children and have to work this is unacceptable.”

At bottom, the school closed for lack of funding. Bertha Williams, the executive director of Sullivan County Head Start, told the River Reporter on Monday that school and government officials have been talking urgently to get the school open again.

Meeting at the Head Start building in Monticello on Monday morning were Sullivan County legislator Luis Alvarez along with representatives  of NYS Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther (D-100) and U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro (NY-19), and other county, state, and federal officials. Williams said they did not come to any definitive conclusion.

She has also been in close touch with Head Start’s regional office and plans to be in meetings for the rest of the day as well. Sullivan Head Start's budget is $3.6 million a year, she said, and all comes from federal funding. The program just ran out of money, she said.

“We want to find out what they require us to do,” Williams said of the regional office. “I hope they tell us what we need to do so that we can do it.” 

Sullivan Head Start plans to issue a press release explaining more at the end of the day on Monday.

Williams called the closure “a very bad situation that has caused upheaval in the entire county.” She said parents of the 340 children who attend Head Start have no place to bring their kids so that they can go to work. 

Head Start is a federally funded program established in 1965 that provides early childhood education and other services to low-income families. Most Head Start participants are three or four years old but, since 1995, infants, toddlers, and pregnant women have been served in Early Head Start programs. Sullivan County had both programs.

“I’ve been working in Headstart for 24 years and when I got the text today I couldn’t stopped crying,” posted Nilsa Cruz on Head Start’s Facebook wall Friday. “This heartbreak...we don’t know why or what’s the reason we’re surprised and shocked...I hope they find a solution of whatever it is happening.”

Sullivan County Head Start was established in 1989, although the first Head Start center in the county was established in 1965. Its website states that 80 percent of its budget comes from the federal government and 20 percent from the county and the community, through its donations of money, goods, services, and volunteer hours.