The email popped up in David Morgan’s inbox a couple of weeks ago: an employee at the Head Start Program office in Boston, which covers the New England region, was letting him know it was their last day of work and they would no longer be his point of contact.
The employee hoped Morgan, who heads up TEAM, Inc, a nonprofit that runs 56 Head Start classrooms, might soon have a new contact with another office, but no further details were provided.
The Boston office was one of five regional offices around the country to be shuttered earlier this month. And although funding for the child care and preschool program has not been cut, uncertainty remains about its future.
“The federal government is not coming to help Connecticut, and we’re beginning to see the signs of how challenging that’s going to be,” Morgan said.
If the program was to be consolidated, Morgan said, he would understand that, but “this is the most chaotic, foggy way to do it.”
Head Start was created by former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration to fight poverty by helping low-income children access early childhood education. Since its founding in 1965, the program has served around 40 million children.
Advocates say that losing Head Start would have a detrimental impact not only on children, who benefit from education, along with meals, vision and dental screenings, but also force scores of parents to leave the workforce. It could also inflict a blow to Gov. Ned Lamont’s goal of creating universal pre-K.
There are 5,718 children currently enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start in Connecticut, according to the Office of Early Childhood. A child is eligible for the program when their family is at or falls below federal poverty guidelines, if they are a foster child, if they are experiencing homelessness or if they are enrolled in a support service like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Depending on their income, parents pay for the program on a sliding fee scale.
While funding for the program has not yet been cut, Morgan is anxious about whether he will receive word about the program’s next grant by the deadline of May 1 without his usual points of contact.
Office of Early Childhood Commissioner Beth Bye said that the Head Start regional office also oversaw Care4Kids and Child Care Development Fund grants, and that her office communicated with them once or twice a week.
“They are some of the smartest people I know, and they stay highly informed on early childhood issues and help us know what other states are doing that works,” Bye said. “I am in utter shock at how undervalued these very skilled professionals are.”
Now, parents whose children attend the programs are worried about what comes next.
Meghan Johnson’s 3-year-old daughter attends a Head Start program in Ansonia.
“She’s growing and blossoming every day,” Johnson said. “Every day she says something new to me and then she’s telling me her teachers taught her that or her friends taught her that.”
Johnson said before she found the program she was spending half of her paycheck on child care. When she heard that the regional Head Start program’s office had closed, she was “terrified.”
“It’s very scary to wake up every morning and not know (if I’ll have child care), your life is kind of in limbo,” she said.
Bye pointed out that all of the Head Start offices that were shuttered were located in “blue” states — New York, Washington, Massachusetts, California and Illinois. “It just doesn’t make sense, it makes you think it was not based on any thought process — it was political.”
Recently, Bye saw a USA Today headline indicating that the Trump administration’s proposed budget would eliminate Head Start altogether. But Bye believes the Head Start program will endure because it enjoys bipartisan support.
“It’s hard to fathom how a thinking person would cut Head Start when it’s such a good return on investment,” Bye said. “But even if they tried, I don’t think they can: politically these cuts affect red states more than blue states. Blue states have more of their own infrastructure.”
This year, Bye has been hard at work representing Lamont and his plan to establish universal pre-K in Connecticut. The end of Head Start would be a major setback to that effort. Bye may think that cutting the program is illogical but admits, “we can’t rule that out.”
Morgan said he, too, has hope the program will survive recent rounds of federal cuts. Recently, he got a new point of contact in the Washington, D.C., office. He’s trying not to alarm employees and families. But the uncertainty is taking a toll.
“I cry to my wife every night. There’s nothing fun about any of this,” he said.