Head Start programs have begun to close around the country while the government shutdown extends into its second month.
Programs across 15 states and Puerto Rico have either fully or partially closed as of Monday afternoon, jeopardizing educational, nutritional, and developmental services for thousands of children across the United States. Head Start programs provide educational resources for kids up to age five from low-income households.
As the shutdown ties the record-long length of 35 days Tuesday, 140 Head Start programs still have not received federal funds, according to the National Head Start Association. While some programs have been boosted by local funds, over 8,000 children under the age of five are being impacted by the funding lapse as their preschools shut down along with the government.
“Every day this shutdown continues, more families face the devastating uncertainty of lost child care, disrupted learning, and missed meals. Our youngest learners should never pay the price for political gridlock,” Yasmina Vinci, the executive director of NHSA, said in a statement.
The East Coast Migrant Head Start Project is one of about 20 projects that have announced their temporary closure during the shutdown. The project provides services across 10 states and supports 43 individual Head Start centers across the country. East Coast Migrant Head Start Project services have shuttered in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.
With the closure of Pulaski County, Arkansas’s University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Head Start program, every Head Start center in the Arkansas capital of Little Rock has been closed by the shutdown, according to the Associated Press.
“If not for the extraordinary dedication and creativity of Head Start staff and community leaders across the country, tens of thousands more children would already have lost access to their classrooms, their teachers, and the stability that Head Start provides,” Vinci said in a statement.
If local communities had not banded together to support Head Start programs, the Nov. 1 funding cliff would have shut down the services for about 65,000 children nationwide, as the NHSA predicted.
In Georgia, several non-profits banded together to provide $8 million to keep Head Start programs alive during the funding hiatus in the Atlanta area.
“If we didn’t receive this bridge loan, on Nov. 1, at the end of the day, we would have shut down all of our centers and furloughed staff,” Lauren Koontz, the president of YMCA of Metro Atlanta, told CBS Atlanta.
In Florida, the state with the most children using Head Start services, the Children’s Services Council of Leon County made headlines last week for allocating $300,000 to help keep the lights on in Head Start centers. The move helped over 300 children across the Tallahassee area.
THUNE EYES LONGER STOPGAP FUNDING BILL AS SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON
The NHSA warns that if the shutdown reaches the next funding cliff, Nov. 30th, thousands more children will lose access to Head Start programs.
The Department of Health and Human Services and the Administration for Children and Families did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner‘s requests for comment.