Fears linger at Pennsylvania Head Start programs after federal funding freeze

In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s sudden federal funding freeze in January, Pennsylvania Head Start staff and the families that rely on them are still shaken and nervous about the future.

The Trump administration released a memo on Jan. 27 freezing all federal spending already authorized by Congress. After a group of 23 state attorneys general sued, the administration rescinded the memo but on Jan. 28 maintained its commitment to withholding federal funding. A federal judge in Rhode Island granted a temporary restraining order blocking the freeze on Jan. 31, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit upheld the order on Feb. 11.

Regina Dougherty is the parent of a child enrolled in a Head Start program in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, while a second child graduated from the program last year and is now in kindergarten.

Although PathStone, the nonprofit organization that operates the program, did not have its access to funds interrupted, Dougherty said that the news that some Head Start programs did have their funds cut off temporarily made her angry and upset.

“This program provides opportunity and education for so many communities and children, and not just the children, but the families as well,” she said. “I understand they’re looking for waste, fraud and abuse in our federal government, but it feels like they’re attacking underprivileged and vulnerable communities in our state and around the country.”

She said threatening programs that families rely on while proposing tax cuts for the wealthy feels unfair to her.

“To me, that looks like waste, fraud and abuse. They’re abusing the vulnerable communities and the vulnerable populations to line their pockets and to line the billionaire corporations’ pockets,” Dougherty said. “And how does that help Americans? That does not help Americans at all, that is disservicing us, and a lot of people are going to suffer from these cuts and these freezes.”

Kara McFalls, executive director of the Pennsylvania Head Start Association, said she’s hearing those concerns, too.

“Parents are maybe thinking that this isn’t reliable,” McFalls said. “They’re working parents. These are working families, families in school, and so being able to afford child care is just not an option for most of the families who are qualified for Head Start. And so what will they do in the absence of these services? And we’ll remind everyone that this is not just a form of child care that these families have. It’s also a two-generational approach. So we’re supporting families, the extended family of those caretakers of those young children, with opportunities for job training, with opportunities to improve their health and well-being through all the services that Head Start offers.”

There’s another problem, McFalls said: The layoffs of probationary employees of the federal government affected 5,200 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Office of Head Start. The employees of the Office of Head Start are the liaisons between the federal government and individual Head Start providers.

She said the layoffs are resulting in disruptive changes for Head Start programs in Pennsylvania, including the reassignment of programs to new specialists without warning.

“Change is hard because then you have to tell your back story, and you have to get these individuals up to speed on all the many — you know, we have very complex programs. We have an incredible amount of regulations, and we have some of the most sophisticated and the most monitoring of any federally funded program,” McFalls said. “And when their program specialist or their grant specialist changes over, it’s just a lot of back and forth.”

Holly Strait, senior vice president of PathStone’s child and family development program, which oversees its Head Start program, said that while PathStone hasn’t yet been affected by staffing changes at the Office of Head Start, all the disruption has caused a lot of consternation for families.

“About 40% of our families have come to us with questions, and we’re just walking them through with, the best we can, the information that we know,” Strait said.

She’s worried too.

“We just submitted our year one noncompetitive grant application, and that was submitted last week, but the funding of that starts June 1, so we’re concerned that if they’re having individuals in the Office of Head Start terminated, it’s going to slow that process of us getting our monies, our funding applications approved,” Strait said.

Two recent federal court rulings ordered the Trump administration to reinstate probationary employees it had fired. However, it’s still unclear how the administration will go about this process, particularly as it implements another round of layoffs of federal employees.