Page 37 - BusinessWest December 8, 2021

Janis Santos, Congratulations
on your Retirement!
Thank you for everything.
On behalf of the Board of Directors of HCS Head Start, Inc., we wish you a happy, healthy and fulfilling retirement.
May this new chapter bring even more joy, laughter and adventure into your life.
to the country’s, and this region’s, most vulnerable children. But just as important, she’s been dedicated to those who work with and on behalf of those children, working tirelessly to stress the importance of early-childhood education and lobby for appropriate wages for those at the front of the classrooms.
And, in what could only be considered irony, the pandemic that tested her mettle as no other challenge during her long career has helped reinforce that message and
“The perception was that we were babysitters out there, and I felt that people just don’t understand that these are critical learning years for children, Some of my friends would visit and say, ‘why don’t you become a real teacher and go teach kindergarten?’”
bring it home in ways that seem destined to bring real change to the landscape.
“During COVID, when there was a lack of childcare and no place for parents to leave their children when they went to work, it became a point of focus,” she explained. “The pub- lic finally saw that this is important; they saw how important these facili- ties are to parents, employers, and the economy.”
But while COVID-19 enlightened many on this topic, it also brought attention to another aspect of this profession that has been a career- long priority for Santos — the need to raise the salary levels for pre- school educators.
Indeed, at a time when employ- ers in every sector of the economy
are struggling to retain workers being tempted by higher wages and better benefits elsewhere, the problem is especially acute in early- childhood education.
“This year, I’ve lost 15 Head Start teachers to public schools,” she
Janis Santos, seen here with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, has spent a lifetime preaching the importance of early- childhood education.
BUILDING HISTORY
SINCE 1897
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Fitness Center Photography by CHODOS, Inc.
Jennifer Adams
Director of Marketing
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noted, adding that, while it has always been a challenge to recruit people to this profession and retain them, at this critical juncture, it is even more so.
As noted, Santos will be retiring at the end of the year, but not leaving the scene when it comes to advocating for early-childhood education and those who provide it.
“I will stay connected to Head Start; I’ve devoted my life to advo- cating for America’s most vulnerable children, and I will continue to do that,” she said, adding that, while continuing those lobbying efforts, she plans to write a history of Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start.
It’s a rich history, obviously, and Santos, named a Woman of Impact by BusinessWest in 2018, had a hand in most of it. For this issue and its focus on education, BusinessWest talked at length with Santos about her career, the changes that have come to early-child- hood education, and the changes she believes still need to come.
School of Thought
By now, most people in the region know at least some of what we’ll call the Janis Santos story. Most versions begin when she was a mother of three enrolled
in night classes at Holyoke
Community College, with
Santos
Continued on page 39
EDUCATION
DECEMBER 8, 2021 37
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