Day care providers, parents and advocates from across the Bay Area rallied Monday as part of a statewide push for affordable child care amid concerns of additional cuts from the Trump administration to a struggling system still reeling from the pandemic.

More than half a dozen child care providers from the region closed their doors Monday and joined nearly 50 parents, workers and advocates in downtown San Jose as part of a national “Day Without Childcare” protest to condemn what they called the Trump administration’s “attacks” on the nation’s care system.

Benu Chhabra, who has owned a Concord preschool for 25 years, said many child care providers have been forced to close their doors because they cannot afford to pay employees higher wages while also serving low-income families.

“The child care system is collapsing. Families can’t afford it, providers can’t sustain it and the workforce is disappearing. Federal investment is the only solution,” Chhabra said. “This industry is run on black and brown women and we are underpaid and undervalued.”

In the Bay Area, the average cost of child care can run upward of $2,000 a month for families, while many child care workers earn close to minimum wage.

The protest comes as the Trump administration explores ways to incentivize women to have children but has also threatened to eliminate funding for Head Start, a federal early childhood education program that serves more than half a million low-income children across the country. Although an internal draft budget proposed cutting the program, a recently released budget proposal from the White House reversed course and does not seek to cut Head Start funding.

But Head Start programs across the Bay Area and country were left reeling after the Trump administration slashed federal staff, closed regional offices – including the office in San Francisco – and erroneously delayed or froze funds, leaving caretakers scrambling to find other funding sources or forced to temporarily close their doors. 

“Head Start is a complicated program, so when the funding is held up and there is no staffing to provide the technical assistance and the funding, then ultimately these sites have to close,” explained Clarissa Doutherd, the executive director of Parent Voices Oakland, a parent-led advocacy group for affordable child care. The organization is also a plaintiff in a national lawsuit suing the Trump administration for its efforts to dismantle Head Start programs across the country. “So even though there are no direct cuts or elimination to Head Start in the federal budget, there’s death by a thousand cuts.”

In a poll last year by this news organization and the think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley, 37% of respondents said they would rate the availability of affordable child care services in their area as “not too good” while 31% said they would rate it as “poor.” California offers subsidized child care for low-income families, but only one in nine of California’s eligible children actually received services as of 2022.

California gets about $1.5 billion in federal funds for Head Start each year, which is used to provide free education, health services and nutrition to about 80,000 kids age five and younger across the state.

San Jose parent Diana Nguyen said she doesn’t know where she would be without Head Start.

“I unfortunately had to put my dreams on hold… to take care of my mom and took care of her up until she died. I told her that I would go back to school one day and so Head Start has stepped in to help me with child care for my kids and I’m able to go back to school to become a nurse,” Nguyen said.

But five years after the pandemic, California child care providers say they’re struggling to keep their doors open as enrollment remains low and the state’s $2.7 billion transitional kindergarten is set to become available for free to every 4-year-old in the state by the 2025-26 school year.

Carolyn Carpenter has worked as a child care provider for over 35 years but said she’s expecting the state’s universal preschool program to close her center down, as she prepares to lose five of the six kids enrolled at her preschool to transitional kindergarten programs in August. She said without enough kids to keep her program open, she anticipates she’ll have to move out of the state.

“That’s very discouraging, to have done something for 35 years — and I’ve gone to school for it and I have a degree — and be so undervalued,” Carpenter said. “The pandemic highlighted what was already problematic. There was already a lack of funding.”

The Santa Clara County Office of Education recently announced plans to lay off hundreds of full-time positions — including many Head Start workers — in anticipation of declining state and federal funding and challenges around rising operational costs and declining enrollment. Last month, Santa Clara County Congressman Ro Khanna urged the county office of education not to lay off Head Start staff, which he said is a “vital program” for more than 1,000 families in the county who would be unable to access early childhood education opportunities without it.

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Advocates called on the California legislature Monday to fully fund child care in the state and provide living wages for providers, as well as protect Head Start funds.

Doutherd, executive director of Parent Voices Oakland, said the group wants corporations to assist employees with child care expenses so the federal government and state are able to provide more support to families.

“We deserve a fair and just child care system in California, the fourth largest economy in the country. We can afford universal child care,” Doutherd said.