Statement from Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez regarding reopening of Head Start program

A petition that is circulating to stop the reopening of the County’s Early Head Start program is inaccurate. Here are the facts:

*Miami-Dade County’s guidelines to reopen programs for children —including Early Head Start, Summer Camps, Sports Camps and the expansion of childcare services, which have remained open as essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic — is based on the recommendations from public health experts, including infectious disease control specialists and doctors from U-Health, Jackson Health System, the medical schools at the University of Miami and Florida International University, as well as public health guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and the Florida Department of Health.

*Miami-Dade County has been responsible and strategic in rolling out its New Normal rules, based on public health experts’ advice. 

*As expected, increased testing for COVID-19 has resulted in more positive results, but based on the number of tests, the positives remain at 6.5 percent or lower during a 14-day period, which is under the 10 percent recommendation by the CDC. Also, hospitalizations in Miami-Dade County continue a downward trend despite more testing of high-risk groups, such as at nursing homes and assisted living facilities. See the Daily Dashboard at http://www.miamidade.gov/information/library/2020-06-05-new-normal-dashboard.pdf.

*The decision to phase in the reopening of Early Head Start was based on parents’ needs for child care as they go to work, return to work and look for work.

*A Community Action and Human Services Department (CAHSD) survey of Early Head Start parents resulted in 80% of parents requesting centers to reopen. 

*No site will open until all parents have received a re-entry and orientation training on changes in classroom capacity and safety rules made necessary by Coronavirus. 

*Sanitation requirements, challenges of social distancing in early child care, differences in drop-off and pick-up arrangements are all based on CDC requirements. 

*All child care centers may choose to reopen, not just the County’s Head Start programs. 

Miami-Dade County is being responsive to working families’ needs while ensuring CDC social distancing and sanitation requirements are met.

CAHSD Director Lucia Davis-Raiford said, “No one is forcing parents to return their children to Early Head Start classes, but if they need child care, and most do, we will not eliminate the access of low-wealth families to the childcare services that more affluent Miami-Dade families can take for granted.”

Head Start is an anti-poverty program that supports low income families by providing quality child care, wraparound social services and economic support, vision and dental screenings, and programs for families with children who have special needs.

Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez said, “We cannot deprive poor and working-class families an equal opportunity to participate in the rebound of Miami-Dade County. To deprive these struggling families of high quality, highly regulated, safe child care would lock out families from services their children deserve.

“During these challenging and tumultuous times,” Gimenez added, “we have a heightened awareness of the past and current use of insidious race-baiting for negative political purposes. We are becoming smarter about rejecting it. We will not engage in it, and we won’t tolerate it when others do. We will most certainly not allow our children and families to be used as pawns in any political agenda. My focus is the health and welfare of all residents.”