Early childhood programs across the country are scrambling for funding and preparing to cease services for thousands of low-income families as the government shutdown reaches the one-month mark.
Head Start, a federal program that provides free preschool and health, nutrition and family support services to roughly 750,000 children in the United States, is slated to experience severe disruptions due to the funding lapse. Though Democrats have long claimed to champion the early childhood education program, their refusal to end the government shutdown threatens to jeopardize access to Head Start services for tens of thousands of beneficiaries across the country.
Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock led 41 Senate Democrats in April to urge the Trump administration to fully fund Head Start programs. Warnock, who is an alum of the early childhood program, also launched a bicameral Head Start Caucus in June 2024 to advocate for more federal investment.
“We write to express our strong opposition to the actions you have taken to directly attack and undermine the federal Head Start program. Since day one, this Administration has taken unacceptable actions to withhold and delay funding, fire Head Start staff, and gut high-quality services for children,” the Senate Democrats led by Warnock and Democratic Washington Sen. Patty Murray wrote in an April letter to Trump’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Though more than 100 Head Start programs are expected to run out of funding within days, Warnock has shown little willingness to reopen the government — and has blamed Republicans for the funding freeze.
“This is a choice that the Republicans are making,” Warnock told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a brief interview on Monday. “They ought to restore health care and reopen the government.”
The Georgia Democrat has voted against a bipartisan funding measure favored by Republicans to temporarily fund the government a dozen times during the 28-day shutdown. The funding lapse would end if he and just four other Democrats would back the clean stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution.
Tomecia Foster, who runs a Head Start program in rural southwestern Georgia that serves 101 children and their families, told the DCNF the government shutdown has an “immediate impact” on the location’s ability to continue operating.
“The loss or interruption of these services would have a devastating effect on our children and the community,” Foster said in an interview.
Warnock’s Democratic colleague, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, has also argued that Republicans are responsible for Head Start programs running out of funding. Warren has similarly voted against a bipartisan spending bill to temporarily fund the government 12 times.
“We’re asking the Republicans to come to the negotiating table so we can reopen the government,” Warren told the DCNF on Monday.
Warren referred to Head Start as a “lifeline for families in Massachusetts and across the country” in April.
Republicans have been adamant that they will not negotiate on unrelated health care policy priorities until Democrats vote to end the shutdown. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has even offered to hold a vote on extending Obamacare subsidies after the government is reopened, but Democrats have thus far balked at the proposal.
“At the end of the day, Democrats don’t want a solution: they want a political issue,” Thune said on Monday.
A total of 140 Head Start programs will no longer have access to federal funding on Nov. 1, according to Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the nonprofit National Head Start Association. A majority of Head Start programs will continue operating because they receive federal grants at different points throughout the year.
“Classrooms will be vacant, and children of families will be on their own to try to figure out what to do instead,” Sheridan told the DCNF. “For many children in our communities, it’s the only place that they have reliable, nutritious meals, where they get health screenings, where they are able to access early intervention for developmental delays or other special needs.”
Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start California, pointed the DCNF to four programs in California serving 949 children that are at risk of closing on Nov. 1. In addition to Head Start beneficiaries that are impacted by the closures, Cottrill also stressed bureaucratic delays that will worsen as a result of the funding lapse.
“Paperwork is required for programs to do things like purchase vehicles, dishwashers, and buildings; switch from serving four-year-olds to younger children; or make adaptations based on local needs,” Cottrill said. “Unprocessed paperwork means programs can’t spend their money, due to no fault of their own, which then risks those already congressionally-appropriated funds no longer being available to that community.”
Sheridan also voiced concerns about “residual effects” of the lapse in funding should low-income families temporarily lose access to programs in their communities.
“Parents are going to have to figure out, do they need to go find a different option? Do they have to get a different job? Are they going to have to quit their jobs?” Sheridan asked. “I mean, there are these types of decisions that are big, lasting decisions. It’s not just politics, right? This is something that is impactful on a family life, also for our staff who work at Head Start programs.”
Though Senate Democrats have attempted to maintain a relatively united front, cracks are showing in the party’s strategy to keep the government closed indefinitely with no clear exit strategy. The nation’s largest federal workers union, a longtime Democratic ally, called on Senate Democrats to end the shutdown on Monday and vote for a clean funding measure backed by Republicans without specifying either party by name.
“It’s a hard calculus to figure out,” Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper said Monday regarding Democrats’ thinking. “I can’t remember a situation where I thought there were less palatable choices.”
Hickenlooper led Colorado’s Democratic delegation in writing to President Donald Trump in May urging him to not eliminate funding for Head Start in the administration’s budget request for the upcoming fiscal year.
The senator called the program “vital” and argued its services played a “foundational role in solidifying life’s earliest years.”
Andi Shae Napier contributed to this report.
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