Fort Bragg has no Head Start this fall, a first in more than 30 years

FORT BRAGG, CA., 10/30/26 — For the first fall in more than 30 years, North Coast Opportunities has no Head Start classroom on the Mendocino coast. The nonprofit pointed to state-mandated transitional kindergarten, the free public-school grade for 4-year-olds, which grew at Fort Bragg Unified from 26 to 69 students in two years.

NCO, the Ukiah nonprofit that runs Head Start centers in Mendocino and Lake counties, closed its Fort Bragg center at 330 S. Lincoln St. on May 6, the last day of the school year. It moved the center’s 16 federally funded slots to a Head Start center in Ukiah, Miriam McNamara, NCO’s Head Start program director, said Wednesday in an email. Each slot is a child the federal grant pays NCO to serve. State licensing records show the center was first licensed in December 1994.