SPOKANE, Wash. — While President Trump’s pause on federal grants and loans was temporarily blocked by a federal judge last week, Head Start program providers across the state say they are still being affected.
Head Start is a federally funded early learning program for kids ages 3 to 4. Some locations even serve pregnant women and newborns to age three. One of these programs operates out of Spokane Community College.
Joel Ryan, executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start said program providers dealt with a half-day government shutdown last week after President Trump froze federal grants and loans. Now, programs are dealing with what he calls rolling blackouts where some programs aren’t able to access federal funding.
“We’re really concerned about the precedent that it set, that we may be in for more of these kind of mini shutdowns or rolling blackouts. So it continues to be a problem. We’re worried about the end game here,” said Ryan.
Ryan said the funds programs across the state cannot access are used to pay staff and bills.
He said this could potentially lead to programs having to close, impacting some of the state’s most vulnerable children.
While the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP said Spokane’s program has not been affected by the rolling blackouts, fears over what will happen next continue to linger.
“We’re worried about the future of Head Start under the administration and Congress, especially over what’s happened over the last two weeks, where programs are really put in a situation where they’re feeling a lot of chaos and confusion and it’s been super disruptive,” said Ryan.
As of now, Ryan said no programs have had to shut their doors, but providers are waiting nervously. He hopes these problems will get resolved.
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