Families brace for continued gaps in Head Start service despite government reopening

Vital federal funding is on the way for Head Start centers that were thrown into crisis by the government shutdown, but it could take time before some children who rely on the federal program can return to preschool.

Some centers that missed out on federal payments had to furlough staff. Others had to shut down entirely, destabilizing thousands of needy families around the country. And operators fear it could take weeks more for overdue payments to be processed.

Even when agencies receive long-delayed grant money, centers will have to rehire staff members and bring back families — both of which may have grown wary of instability in the program, which relies almost entirely on federal grants.

“The damage has been done in a lot of ways,” Massachusetts Head Start Association Executive Director Michelle Haimowitz said. “We know that it’s going to take some time to fill back up.”

About 140 Head Start programs representing 65,000 slots didn’t receive their annual grants during the 43-day shutdown, which concluded when President Donald Trump signed a government funding bill Wednesday night.

Head Start serves children from low-income families from birth to age 5. The program offers a variety of services to families, such as early learning, support for children with disabilities, free meals and health screenings.

With the shutdown over, the federal Office of Head Start will expedite funding and contact affected Head Start programs to share when they can expect federal money, said Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the program.

Head Start operators anticipate that could take weeks.

Federal workers are returning to “a mountain of work” that will take time to process, Haimowitz said. That doesn’t just include sending out missed grant awards — other paperwork for a range of technical issues has been delayed since layoffs at the Office of Head Start earlier this year, she said.

“Those delays have just been piling up since April, with no fault to the existing civil servants at the Office of Head Start,” Haimowitz said. “They just have half the capacity that they had just a few months ago.”

Families prepare for the worst-case scenario

Depending on how quickly federal workers can send out funds, the backlog in grant renewals could spill over and affect Head Start agencies that are supposed to receive funding in December, operators said. Some of the families who attend those centers are already making preparations for that worst-case scenario.

Gena Storer, who works as a home health aide in Xenia, Ohio, is trying to “make as much money as I possibly can” in case her daughter’s Head Start center closes. The center staff told parents hours before the government reopened that they still expect to shutter temporarily on Dec. 1 if funding is delayed, Storer said.

If the center closes, Storer’s 4-year-old daughter, Zarina, will stay at home until it reopens. Storer will then need to adjust her work hours to make sure she can be home with Zarina while her fiance works 12-hour shifts at a Target distribution center.

Uncertainty about SNAP federal food aid payments has also added stress for Storer’s family. Storer had been working extra hours through the shutdown to help provide for her 72-year-old mother, who also uses SNAP benefits.

“If my mom didn’t have us to help her, what would she do?” the 31-year-old said.

For Storer, Head Start has been more than a reliable option for child care. Zarina used to receive speech therapy to address her lack of speaking. But since starting Head Start in September, Storer said she’s noticed her daughter becoming more talkative and outgoing because she learns from having conversations with her classmates.

Programs pay out-of-pocket to keep doors open

Programs that stayed open without a guarantee of reimbursement by the federal government could also face further financial strains. At Louis Russ’ home day care in Knox County, Indiana, he and his wife are planning a pop-up toy shop out of their garage to offset money they might lose by staying open.

Russ and his wife started operating a day care out of their home in April and partnered soon after with East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, a nonprofit that serves children of migrant farmworkers across 10 states. Six out of the eight children in Russ’ home day care are Head Start-funded.

East Coast Migrant Head Start Project was one of the programs affected by a funding lapse, which resulted in more than 1,000 children being shut out of their centers. Russ and his wife also stopped receiving their Head Start payments at the end of October, but the decision to keep their home open was a “no brainer,” Russ said. Offering the children consistency during an otherwise unpredictable time was important to them, he said.

“Staying open and keep taking the children we have, that was the easy part,” he said. “Figuring out how we’re going to stay open if this goes on too long, that’s the tricky part.”

It’s been tense operating the program without knowing when funding will be released. Russ and his wife already took a pay cut, and they have another employee on the payroll. About three-quarters of their budget is payroll, Russ said, but other expenses like groceries and maintenance needs can stack up quickly without an income.

“Our program, being so new, we were running pretty bare bones as is,” Russ said. “And especially in child care, which doesn’t have a huge profit margin, there’s only so much wiggle room when things like this happen.”

___

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.