- Watering the plants.

- Good job.

- [Michelle] Krystal Beatty and her husband Joshua found themselves at a crossroads last year.

- And what's the monkey have in his hand?

- Banana.

- Banana.

- [Michelle] Beatty says her husband was spending his entire paycheck on daycare for his two children, four-year-old Emma and two-and-a-half-year-old Evan.

- The total amount for the family was almost $600.

If that's what you're making weekly, and that's what you're paying for daycare weekly.

I mean, where are you gonna survive?

- 5, 6, 7, 8.

- [Michelle] Beatty says, it wasn't long before she and her husband went through all of their savings, so they decided to send their kids to daycare two days a week instead of five.

- 15, 16, 17.

- [Michelle] In the meantime, they both took online classes and worked part-time, but not having affordable childcare kept them out of the workforce full-time.

- We've struggled, and luckily, yes, we had family.

I really fell highly back on my family, luckily.

But I mean, you can't expect them to give up things in their lives to help support you, like you're supporting your 30-year-old daughter.

Like that's just not realistic.

- [Michelle] Were you guys worried about having to leave this apartment?

- There were points that we did have to speak with Josh's family about going back home to them, yeah.

- [Michelle] In February, Beatty applied to enroll her two stepchildren in Headstart, a federal program that offers free early childcare to low income families.

- [Krystal] Good job, Emma.

- [Michelle] But it wasn't clear how long Emma and Evan would have to wait to start school there or if a spot would even be guaranteed.

♪ B is for bear, ba-ba-bear ♪ ♪ C is car ♪ - [Michelle] It's a waiting game that families across Rhode Island have experienced.

There are more children eligible for Headstart than there are spots available.

- Well, we've always had a waiting list for Headstart.

- [Michelle] Leanne Barrett is the senior policy analyst at Rhode Island Kids Count, a nonprofit organization that advocates for children.

- We've usually been able to serve about half the kids who are eligible, and that's true nationally.

We've never had enough funding at the federal or the state level to adequately meet the needs of families.

- Five and six-year-old children are inheritors of poverty's cursed.

- [Michelle[ President Lyndon Johnson launched Headstart in 1965 to help break the cycle of poverty.

- I believe that this is one of the most constructive and one of the most sensible and also one of the most exciting program that this nation has ever undertaken.

♪ Welcome back to school, my friends ♪ - [Michelle] Since then, 37 million children have gone through the program across the country.

In Rhode Island, there are seven Headstart programs.

Children's Friend is the biggest one in the state.

- You got a lot of different colors on here, huh?

- [Michelle] David Caprio is the organization's president and CEO - We describe, you know, who we serve in three different ways.

Children who are victims of abuse and neglect and may be involved in the child welfare system.

Children who lack permanency in their lives so they may be in foster care or awaiting an adoption.

By far, the vast majority of the the children that we serve are children who are living in poverty.

- [Group] 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 14.

- [Michelle] But Caprio says, many children who live in poverty are not getting the education they deserve.

About 150 children are on the wait list at Children's Friend because there aren't enough teachers.

- Some of the teachers who have been in this field for a long time, because of Covid or other stress factors, have now retired or left, and there's nobody new coming in.

In Headstart, our teachers are making on average about $40,000.

And these are degreed early childhood teachers, and we know that the market rate in Rhode Island is around 60,000 for that.

- [Michelle] Throughout Rhode Island, 30 Headstart classrooms are closed because of the staffing shortage, shutting out more than 500 preschoolers.

♪ Z is for zebra, ze-ze-zebra ♪ - [Michelle] And that's not all.

11 early Headstart classrooms are also closed which means 88 babies and toddlers are out of school.

- We're in one of our classrooms, and, you know, you can see, it's a pretty bright and great classroom with lots of stuff in it.

The one thing that's missing though are the kids.

- [Michelle] In order to reopen classrooms, Caprio says teachers wages need to go up to attract qualified candidates.

- Just this year, we're giving a 1% cost of living increase.

So we are able to adjust wages, but again, and we're giving a 1% raise on top of $40,000, we're getting nowhere near the market.

- And as we well know, the cost of living has gone up by a lot more than just 1% over the last year.

- Yes, absolutely.

But again, Headstart funding in the state of Rhode Island has not gone up.

- [Michelle] Currently, the state of Rhode Island spends $1.2 million on Headstart annually, about $2 million less than it did before the Great Recession.

- We lost funding in 2008 for Headstart, and we've never gotten it back.

- The majority of funding for Headstart comes from the federal government.

Supporters of the program want the state of Rhode Island to invest $6.5 million in Headstart and early Headstart so they can open the 41 classrooms that are closed.

What's at risk if you do not get the funding that you want for Headstart?

- More classrooms are really, seem to be on the verge of permanent closure.

They're temporarily closed now, but we think they may never be able to reopen if we don't find additional funding.

- [Michelle] But getting the funding could be a challenge.

The state of Rhode Island is not required to fund Headstart agencies.

In his proposed budget.

Governor Dan McKee has set aside $7 million for RI pre-kindergarten, but Barrett says Headstart offers services that state pre-K does not.

- It's not just dropping your child off for the day and picking them up at 3:00.

It is also getting family support services, help with moms meeting their own goals, going back and finishing a high school or post-secondary training, housing issues.

They help with all kinds of wraparound issues for families.

- [Michelle] Barrett points to decades of research that show the long-term benefits of the program.

- Kids who go to early Headstart and Headstart are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to get post-secondary education completed and more likely to be employed in a sustaining kind of job as an adult.

- [Michelle] One of Rhode Island's most vocal supporters of Headstart is former Providence mayor, Angel Taveras.

He attended the program in Providence back in the 1970s.

- I remember it being fun, being excited about going to school.

I remember graduation, having a cap and gown.

- [Michelle] The program made such an impression on him that when he ran for mayor in 2010, his campaign slogan was, "From Headstart to Harvard."

- When I was at Harvard, one of my roommates went to Headstart, and several of the minority kids students at Harvard went to Headstart, and we talked about it.

So even back in college, I realized that there was something special about it, that it wasn't a coincidence in some ways that we ended up at Harvard.

- A.

- A.

- A.

- A.

- Good job.

- [Michelle] Much like the families on the Headstart wait list, the programs administrators are also waiting.

They say getting more funding from the state would cause a ripple effect in the economy.

- It's possible that people who could be working are not working.

They're staying home with their kids.

We know that there are shortages of bus drivers.

There's shortages of people to work in nursing homes.

There's shortages of people to work in hospitals.

And all of that depends on having a stable and high-quality early care and education system.

- [Michelle] That's the case for Krystal Beatty in Woonsocket.

- My face again.

- [Krystal] Wiping your face again.

- [Michelle] She recently found out a spot opened up at her local Headstart for her step-daughter, Emma.

She says, getting Emma into Headstart five days a week allowed her to accept a full-time job.

- For them to offer me a spot for this year because they knew a child was moving instead of making me wait till next September, I mean, we would've been out of work, or at least I would've been out of work till next September, and who knows where we would've been financially then.

So it's a huge relief.

- He has wheels, right?

He can go.

- [Michelle] But Caprio says it's a relief that too many families don't have.

- If nothing changes, then we have kids who are on a wait list right now who are probably never gonna get served.

And just because of where they live and their income, they're gonna start kindergarten behind other children.

And that's a lifetime of negative impacts, and that's the outcome of doing nothing.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Finally tonight, we revisit Rhode Island photographer,