The government shutdown is triggering a wave of closures of Head Start centers, leaving working parents scrambling for child care and shutting some of the nation's neediest children out of preschool.
Dozens of centers are missing out on federal grant payments that were due to arrive Nov. 1. Some have closed indefinitely, while others are staying afloat with emergency funding from local governments and school districts. The closures mean Head Start students — who come from low-income households, are homeless or are in foster care — are missing out on preschool, where they are fed two meals a day and receive therapy vital to their development.
Keiliana Porter, a mother of three in Portsmouth, Ohio, had to break the news to her 4-year-old twins, Kalani and Kanoelani, that they could not return to school Monday.
“It was like I was punishing them,” Porter said. “They just don’t understand, and that’s the hardest thing.”
Typically, Porter cares for her youngest daughter at home and runs a small business selling homemade bows and decorative charms for work badge lanyards. With the local Head Start closed and all three girls at home, she had to pause orders.
“Children love school, and the fact that they can’t go is breaking their hearts,” said Sarah Sloan, who oversees Head Start centers in Portsmouth and surrounding Scioto County, Ohio. “It’s hampering our families’ ability to put food on the table and to know that their children are safe during the day.”
A half-dozen Head Start programs never received grants that were anticipated in October, but there are now 140 programs that have not received their annual infusion of federal funding. All told, the programs have capacity to assist 65,000 preschoolers and expectant parents.
Centers across the country serving at least 8,000 families were closed Monday, according to the National Head Start Association. Every Head Start center in Little Rock, Arkansas, closed, as well as several rural programs in Ohio, Iowa and Florida.
Head Start programs that serve the children of farmworkers who move seasonally were hit especially hard. More than 1,100 children in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama and Oklahoma were shut out of centers run by the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, said CEO Javier Gonzalez. About 900 staff members across the centers also have been furloughed.
Without care, some parents may keep an older sibling home from school to babysit. Others may resort to bringing their young child to the fields where they work, Gonzalez said.
Pause in food aid compounds struggles for Head Start families
Many of the families that qualify for the federal preschool program also depend on food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP or food stamps. That program also was on track to run dry of money due to the shutdown, although a pair of federal judges on Friday ordered the Trump administration to keep the program running with emergency reserve funds.
That means many Head Start families have been worried about food aid, along with the child care they rely on to make ends meet. A day without child care means a day without work for many parents — and a day without pay.
Having his 10-month-old daughter Maxxy in Early Head Start in Clinton, Iowa, opened up a new chapter for Jaxson Liebfreude, who had stayed at home since Maxxy was born while his spouse worked as a Burger King manager. The 22-year-old had started applying for jobs, but when he learned the Head Start was closing Monday, it meant putting his job aspirations on hold.
“It’s stressful, because I really wanted to get back into working for a long time,” Liebfreude said. “But now it feels like I don’t even have the option anymore.”
The family was already dealing with uncertainty because of the then-looming cuts in funding for SNAP, which they rely on for their groceries.
Before the shutdown, Liebfreude said his family would visit one food pantry in their town monthly. Now, they go to all three food pantries once a month, in addition to asking friends to pick up food from the pantries to make sure they have enough for Maxxy, he said.
“Only having to focus on giving her dinner and snacks after school was so much easier than having to make sure that we have enough food for her to have breakfast, lunch and dinner and more snacks,” Liebfreude said of Head Start’s meal service, which provides breakfast and lunch to enrolled children.
Some centers stay open — for now
Launched six decades ago as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, Head Start programs provide a range of services beyond early education, such as medical and dental screenings, school meals and family support to children from low-income households who can't afford other child care options.
The initiative is funded almost entirely by the federal government, leaving it with little cushion from funding disruptions.
Some that have missed out on grant payments have managed to remain open, with philanthropies, school districts and local governments filling in gaps. Others are relying on fast-dwindling reserves and warn they can’t keep their doors open for much longer.
“If the government doesn’t open back up, we will be providing less services each week,” said Rekah Strong, who heads a social services nonprofit that runs Head Start centers in southern Washington state. She’s already had to close one center and several classrooms and cut back home-based visiting services. “It feels more bleak every day.”
In Florida, Head Start centers in Tallahassee and surrounding Leon County closed Oct. 27, but then reopened the next day thanks to a grant from Children’s Services Council of Leon County. The local school district and churches have stepped up to provide meals for the children.
“It takes a village to raise a child, and our village has come together,” said Nina Self, interim CEO of Capital Area Community Action Agency.
But children in rural Jefferson and Franklin counties, where the agency runs two small Head Start centers, were not as lucky. They’ve been closed since late October.
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