The Minot Head Start will be forced to close six Head Start classrooms and three Early Head Start classrooms next month and fire around 18 percent of its staff who have refused to comply with a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate, Head Start Director Karen Knowles said Thursday.

Head Start is 100 percent federally funded, so teachers and staff who are employed there are federal employees who are required to comply with the federal mandate.

President Joe Biden ordered that all Head Start employees be vaccinated by January. Those that refuse will lose their jobs.

“The only one who’s going to be able to overturn (the mandate for Head Start employees) is the President,” said Knowles.

Knowles told the Minot Public School Board on Thursday that a deadline for vaccination has been extended to Jan. 31, but Minot Head Start will stick with the original Jan. 1 deadline for staff to be vaccinated. She said it is easier to make the transition after the Christmas break and she does not anticipate that staff will change their minds about the vaccine.

The federal mandate means that about 100 children in Head Start will lose their slots in classrooms and about 16 children In Early Head Start will no longer be able to attend the program.

Head Start will close its classrooms at Jefferson Early Head Start and relocate remaining classrooms and teachers to the main building.

Knowles said that children about to enter kindergarten, those with siblings attending Head Start, and those with disabilities have been given priority to continue receiving services.

Kids who do return to Head Start after Christmas might be forced to wear masks in the classroom. To date, Knowles said the Minot Head Start has not been requiring its preschoolers to wear masks. Head Start teachers will speak with parents about masking. Knowles said she hopes that mandate will be changed to a recommendation.

Parents were notified at the end of last week that their children would no longer be able to attend Head Start. Knowles said that will give the parents a few weeks to find alternative daycare arrangements.

Knowles said the Head Start program has already been short staffed this year and the 18 percent reduction is on top of that.

Finding 24 fully vaccinated, qualified staff members to teach Head Start classes by next August seems like “an impossible task,” Knowles told the board.

The vaccine mandate does not apply to teachers at Minot Air Force Base in the elementaries and middle school because those teachers are considered state employees, Supt. Mark Vollmer told the board.