Head Start advocates in WA address ‘chaos’ of federal funding freeze

The Trump Administration walked back an executive order that froze billions of dollars in federal funding, affecting Americans nationwide.

The White House reported on Tuesday the temporary pause would not impact Head Start programs in the U.S. This comes after the early learning program wasn’t able to access the money it depends on to provide services to vulnerable children and low-income families.

"It created an incredible amount of chaos and concern for families across our state depending on the Head Start program," said Joel Ryan, executive director of Washington State Association of Head Start & ECEAP.

Ryan said the association represents all Head Start programs in Washington, advocating for providers and the program in Olympia and Washington, D.C. Head Start provides childcare, health screenings, nutritional meals, and other services to children of low-income families.

"And in some cases, help them identify emergency services in their community, like food and housing. So, this pause was a wake-up call, not just here in the state of Washington, but across the country," said Ryan.

By the numbers:

In Washington, more than 13,200 students are enrolled in Head Start programs. Their families went into a frantic scramble for care after President Donald Trump’s executive order forced operations at several Head Start providers to close for the day.

"The impact it has on real people, on real families, and people are trying to get to work and do better for themselves and their kids and how that detrimental impact had on families," said Ryan.

After the executive order to pause federal funding on Tuesday, Head Start programs across the country were temporarily locked out of payment websites.

"They were not able to access the payment portal. Many of the programs were concerned about whether they would be able to pay their rent, pay their staff. But most importantly, there were a lot of families that were concerned that they wouldn’t have childcare," said Ryan.

Hours after Tuesday’s lockout, access to payment websites was restored. The administration blamed an "outage" for locking out a variety of agencies from online systems that are used to gather federal funds. The White House said funding for Head Start should not have been affected by the freeze.

The White House further stated, "Funds for small businesses, farmers, Pell grants, Head Start, rental assistance, and other similar programs will not be paused. If agencies are concerned that these programs may implicate the President’s Executive Orders, they should consult [the Office of Management and Budget] to begin to unwind these objectionable policies without a pause in the payments."

What they're saying:

Despite the clarification, Ryan said the damage was done. He said the confusion was so severe that it caused program providers and the association some uncertainty about the future.

"The pause was unfrozen not before causing a lot of chaos in the community," said Ryan. "Unfortunately, what we’re really worried about is that the Trump Administration and their extreme agenda will continue to target programs that support very low-income kids and families all in service to a giant tax cut that they’re teeing up right now for very wealthy people and corporations."

With Head Start’s funding scramble over, for now, Ryan said the association would work even closer with its state and federal allies to protect the vital program for children.

"We see this, unfortunately, as a very long road and conversation about what should we be doing for kids who are furthest from opportunity," said Ryan. "There are so many children in our state that are experiencing deep levels of poverty that we need to be a voice for. We need to make sure that every kid in our state, doesn’t matter what zip code you’re from, what your household is like, what your income is like, you should have an opportunity to succeed in school and succeed in life."

The Source: Information comes from previous reporting by FOX 13 Seattle reporter Franque Thompson.

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