The federal agency that oversees Head Start and Early Head Start programs has picked Fairfield City Schools to run its programs in western Jefferson County.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Head Start selected the school district for a five-year grant for more than $15 million, Fairfield City Schools Superintendent Regina Thompson announced today.

The programs, which are free for families that qualify based on income, provide preschool for children between the ages of six weeks and five years old, as well as support and training for pregnant people for prenatal development. They will serve children living in Fairfield, Bessemer, Birmingham, Brighton and Midfield, starting with two programs in mid-October that will serve 88 infants through Early Head Start and 152 children through Head Start programs.

“We talked about, ‘Okay, how many students are we really not reaching in our community?’” Thompson said during a Tuesday press conference. “If we’re going to help them embark upon helping them to strive as learners, we need to start early.”

The school district already runs a preschool at the Forest Hills Community Development Center in Fairfield, serving 80 children, ages 4 and 5, which will be one site with Head Start classes. The school district is still working on finalizing the second site with the Office of Head Start, Thompson told AL.com – but they’re aiming for one that closed when the previous service provider shut down, she said.

Fairfield’s school district is taking over nearly two years after the previous service provider, the Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity, dissolved amid a financial misuse scandal. In the meantime, temporary operator Community Development Institute, has been running five Head Start and Early Head Start sites. It’s unclear what will happen to the other sites; spokespeople for the Office of Head Start didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“The western area is an area where no families were served after JCCEO closed, so we will be servicing children within the western area” Tara Boyd, pre-K facilitator for Forest Hills Community Development Center, said during the press conference. “We will be supporting those families with continued childcare.”

At the start of 2023, the Office of Head Start launched a grant competition to find a new permanent operator for Jefferson County’s Head Start and Early Head Start services.

A public notice filed in early August signaled CDI’s time as a temporary provider for the county’s childcare programs was coming to a close. A WARN notice, which major employers are legally required to file with the state before cutting jobs or closing, announced CDI was laying off 126 employees at the end of September.

The school district is planning a job fair in the next few days to hire staff for the two sites, including a chief financial officer, and four to five specialists and teachers, Thompson said. She told AL.com that she’s connected with the teachers that were slated for layoffs from Community Development Institute at the end of September and that the school district will be “one of the service providers” to hire those employees.