Head Start Closures Spread Amid Trump Funding Delays \ Newslooks \ Washington DC \ Mary Sidiqi \ Evening Edition \ Head Start centers across the U.S. have received nearly $1 billion less in federal funds compared to this time last year. The funding delays under the Trump administration have forced some preschools for low-income children to shut down, laying off staff and leaving families without childcare. Lawmakers and advocates warn more closures are likely without urgent action.
Quick Looks
- Head Start has received $1.6B in 2024, down from $2.55B this time in 2023.
- Delays linked to Trump-era agency cutbacks and regional office closures.
- Inspire Development Centers in Washington closed classrooms for 400+ children.
- Over 70 staff were laid off while awaiting delayed federal grants.
- Advocates warn more closures are likely due to slowed grant processing.
- Sen. Patty Murray blames Trump for “slow-walking” congressionally approved funds.
- Five of 12 Head Start regional offices closed as part of federal downsizing.
- Parents left without free preschool or childcare for low-income families.
- Health screenings, nutritional programs, and disability services also disrupted.
- Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposes eliminating Head Start altogether.
Deep Look
In what advocates describe as a predictable and preventable crisis, dozens of Head Start preschool classrooms are shuttering across the United States — and the cause, they say, lies in a sharp drop in federal funding and a bureaucratic slowdown under the Trump administration’s push to shrink the federal government.
From January 1 through early April, the federal government has distributed just $1.6 billion to Head Start programs nationwide — a staggering decline from the $2.55 billion distributed during the same period last year. The nearly $1 billion gap is already having serious consequences: layoffs, closed classrooms, and thousands of children abruptly cut off from critical early childhood education.
Nowhere is the impact more evident than in Sunnyside, Washington, where Inspire Development Centers — one of the region’s largest Head Start providers — was forced to close multiple classrooms this week, affecting more than 400 low-income children and laying off over 70 staff. According to CEO Jorge Castillo, the centers will not reopen until the promised federal money arrives.
“It’s devastating,” Castillo said. “Families have lost access to free, high-quality preschool, developmental assessments, meals, and health screenings. Some of these children have learning or physical disabilities, some are considered homeless — and now they’re cut off from services they depend on to thrive.”
The situation is the latest in a series of funding disruptions to plague the Head Start program under Trump’s leadership. When the former president first took office in 2017, a temporary freeze on federal grants forced providers to suspend operations after they were locked out of their accounts. And just this month, the administration implemented sweeping federal layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), closing at least five of the 12 regional Head Start offices nationwide.
The closures, critics say, have crippled the infrastructure required to efficiently process grants and communicate with providers.
“If you eliminate the regional offices, you are going to slow down grant processing — and, sure enough, they did,” said Joel Ryan, executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start. “What Sunnyside is experiencing is not only predictable, it’s probable. Today, parents don’t have childcare, and those kids are missing essential programming.”
Head Start was created in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. The program serves over half a million of the nation’s most vulnerable children annually, providing not just preschool education, but also health services, nutritional support, and early intervention for developmental delays. It has long enjoyed bipartisan support, but some conservatives have criticized its scope and effectiveness.
The Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025 policy plan — seen by many as a blueprint for Trump’s second-term agenda — goes even further, explicitly calling for the elimination of Head Start altogether.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a longtime advocate for early childhood education, said this week that the Trump administration is “slow-walking” funding that Congress has already appropriated.
“As he works to give more tax breaks to billionaires like himself, Donald Trump is doing everything he can to destroy Head Start — without a care in the world for the hundreds of thousands of working families across the country who depend on it,” Murray said in a statement.
Inspire Development Centers, like many Head Start providers, typically receives preliminary funding notifications in February, with final awards arriving by May. This year, there has been no communication from HHS, leaving providers in financial limbo. The agency has not responded to media requests for comment on the cause or timeline of the delays.
Head Start advocates warn that without immediate federal intervention, more closures are imminent. Each day of inaction means another day that low-income parents are left scrambling for childcare and at-risk children go without critical developmental support.
“This isn’t just about preschool,” Castillo said. “It’s about basic services that many families can’t access anywhere else. It’s about equity, and it’s about giving these children a fair shot.”
In the wake of the closures in Washington, lawmakers are pushing for emergency funding releases and greater transparency from HHS. But with election-year politics heating up and Trump doubling down on federal downsizing, the future of Head Start — long seen as a cornerstone of America’s social safety net — is looking increasingly uncertain.
Head Start Closures
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