News

The federal administration recently announced a proposal to eliminate Head Start, a 60-year-old federally funded program that provides comprehensive early learning, health, nutrition, and family support services to low-income children, ages 3-5, and their families as well as pregnant women and infants/toddlers under age 3. 

Head Start serves nearly 30,000 Pennsylvania children at 806 centers and employs nearly 10,000 staff members. In total, Head Start serves 750,000 children across all 50 states. Head Start is a critical program within the early care and education infrastructure and a high-quality child care option for families living in poverty.

“We have decades of data showing early childhood education drives economic mobility, strengthens communities, and reduces the need for costly interventions later,” said Cara Ciminillo, executive director for Trying Together. “Gutting a program that serves nearly a million children and families each year would set us back generations — and cost us far more in the long run.”

In recent months, a number of actions by the current administration have led to disruption and confusion for families and educators, delays in payments to local Head Start grantees, and loss of employment for Head Start and Office of Child Care staff at the federal level. Additionally, five Head Start Regional Offices were closed, representing half of all regional offices across the country, including 22 states, six territories, and 467 Tribal governments. This has resulted in diminished capacity for federal grant awards, monitoring, and technical assistance as well as a major loss of content knowledge expertise for early childhood.

In response to these actions, the Pennsylvania Head Start Association (PHSA) has joined with a coalition of several state Head Start associations as well as two Parent Voices of Oakland, Family Forward Oregon, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Ted Waters to file a complaint to prevent the dismantling of Head Start. 

“The administration is taking Head Start apart piece by piece by slow walking grants, making it harder to access rigorously approved funding, and executive orders that cut at the heart of serving children and families in our communities,” PHSA said in an April 28 email to supporters. 

“These actions will result in the widespread termination of services for children and families that rely on Head Start for their childcare needs and are contrary to the Head Start Act, violates constitutional separation of powers, spending clause, due process (vagueness), First Amendment and the APA and is arbitrary and capricious. The President can’t thwart statutory directives by defunding the program.”

Read more. 

Take Action

Trying Together is deeply concerned with the proposed elimination of Head Start and urges federal policymakers to prevent the dismantling of this critical service. Make your voice and take action in one of the following ways: 

• Sign the Pre-K for PA petition to Tell Congress to Protect Head Start and/or one of the other petitions listed on Pennsylvania’s Head Start Association website
• Contact your legislators by phone, email, or letter
• Tell your story: Share what Head Start means to you
• Visit the Pennsylvania Head Start Association action page. We recommend taking every action you possibly can
  
• Invite others on social media to take action. Don’t forget to tag your policymaker!