Photos: Drought bringing Migrant Head Start to a stop

Migrant Head Start staffer Diana Toscano peers through a window as she canvases the dusty farms of western Fresno County to recruit children for her school in Five Points.

Migrant Head Start program director Araceli Perez sits with children in a classroom in Five Points. Perez said her husband, who serves as a foreman, was without work this spring because of the drought.

Five Points’ Migrant Head Start center sits on the edge of unplanted farmland in western Fresno County. Two years ago, the center served 38 children. That number is now down to 19.

Two-year-old Roselyn Hernandez takes a nearly one-hour bus ride past dusty farmland to the Migrant Head Start center in Five Points. Migrant Head Start has stepped up recruitment, scouring migrant labor camps in a desperate search for children.

Juvelina Saldana, 52, fills out school paperwork as her granddaughter Roselyn Ramirez, 5 boards a bus for the Five Points Migrant Head Start center. “We used to have a line out the door,” said Fresno Head Start Director Flora Chacon. “There was a waiting list.”

A discarded mattress lies in the courtyard of an abandoned migrant housing complex near Five Points, Calif.

Abandoned children’s toys are lined up along a wall inside an abandoned migrant housing complex near Five Points, Calif. “The kids have left. Look at all the families that had to leave this area because there is no water,” said Migrant Head Start staffer Diana Toscano.

A child’s bicycle is parked outside trailer home on a dusty farm in Five Points. County. As with farmworkers, Migrant Head Start staffers’ futures are at stake. There’s a good chance they may lose their jobs if attendance at the school doesn’t pick up.