Esterbloom

As older students get ready to close their textbooks for the year, some of Hermiston’s youngest learners have new a place to begin their education.

Umatilla-Morrow Head Start has two new locations, one that opened two weeks ago and one scheduled to open in the near future.

The Downtown Center, at 372 East Main St., opened in mid-May, and houses 40 preschool-age students for extended day classes. Those classes are six-and-a-half hours long.

Another classroom space is planned on Airport Road, but no date has been announced for the project.

Associate Operations Director Dan Daltoso said UMCHS had been working to find a place to expand for several months, and wanted to move two of the classes previously held at the Victory Square office into a new location.

“Parents really wanted extended-day services,” he said.

Daltoso said they got a great price on the building, which more recently housed the Gems and Gents preschool, but it needed a lot of work.

“We had to put in new bathrooms, and we had to work with the licensing and building offices,” he said.

Daltoso said the building was originally an auto parts store, and they had to make siginficant remodels to the building. They also redid the kitchen and created office space.

Daltoso said renovating the Downtown Center cost a little over $100,000.

He said the classes in Victory Square were part-day — morning or afternoon classes — and with the expansion to extended-day classes, they needed some more space and staff support.

He said he didn’t know when the Airport Road location would open, but that would likely be some time in the next program year. It is supposed to have room for 60 students, and will create 10 new jobs.

A Head Start bus barn is also planned for that location.

“We just got the funds, and we haven’t even gotten to the planning yet,” he said.