A Trump administration proposal to deregulate Head Start is raising alarms as operators say they fear the aim is to gut the anti-poverty initiative.
And the community service organizations operating the safety net programs.
“I was very straight with my board,” said Renee Hungerford, executive director and CEO of Community Action of Orleans & Genesee. “I said, if this, you know, all these things go through ... I really have to look at what is left of this agency.”
The federal proposal would strike hundreds of regulations governing everything from curricula to medical screenings to home visits. The administration says the rules are onerous, and that the changes will save $2.2 billion, increase local control and — by increasing class sizes — add as many as 236,000 slots, on top of the 700,000 infants, toddlers and pregnant women enrolled today.
“If there's going to be any changes to the performance standards, they should be to improve (the program),” said Jerome Underwood, president and CEO of Action for a Better Community. “Not tear it apart.”
ABC has operated Head Start in Monroe County since its inception in 1965, and currently serves about 790 children and pregnant mothers — having recently reduced class sizes in an effort to raise teacher pay and raise overall program quality. Community Action serves about 135.
Both are part of the National Community Action Partnership, a network that holds a third of all Head Start contracts in the country.
Undercutting the effort
Head Start is the largest program for both nonprofits, and it is wholly funded by the federal government. Included in that funding has been an allowable 15% for administrative costs, which help support the agencies’ constellation of support services.
“You know, a child may come in for Head Start, but maybe that family needs food, or maybe they need help with rent, or maybe they need help finding a job,” Hungerford said, “and so we can kind of bring that all together.”
The rules change would reduce that to 5%, if approved.
"And that affects my entire agency, then,” Hungerford said. “Because then we don't have enough money to administer the entire agency,” she said. “So all the programs, and all the 5,000 people that our agency benefits suffer.”
That concern is echoed by Sharon Minigan, who oversees Head Start in Monroe County as ABC’s vice president for early childhood services.
“That's the whole philosophy,” she said of the wrap-around service offerings. “We do all the work, so when they walk through the kindergarten door, they're equal to their counterparts, you know? They're better able to move on with learning because all of the other items that will hinder them or hold them back has been taken care of through Head Start.”
The pandemic focused attention on children’s well-being but while the world has moved on from COVID-19, she said, the challenges for children and families remain.
“What we're seeing with those children that are coming in now, there's a lot of behavioral issues, a lot of non-socializing issues,” Minigan said.
Some haven’t been exposed to books, she said. Others aren’t potty-trained at 4.
“Some haven't seen a doctor or in a while, or a dentist ever,” she said, “because dental homes have dried up in Rochester for young children. So what we do is we get those children, and we prepare them for the kindergarten teacher to receive them.
“They are ready for school,” she continued, “and not just walking through the doors with a backpack.”
'If not this, then what?’
Underwood calls the potential reduction of the administrative costs “unconscionable,” and the support services “crucially integral to the effective results of what we see.”
“I challenge any well-run organization in the United States that can run on a 5% administrative burden,” he said. “That is one of the things that we see as an attempt to destroy the program.”
Head Start historically has received bipartisan support, despite criticisms from conservative and libertarian groups. More recently there have been rumblings of eliminating the program, and last year brought widespread funding delays and disruptions that forced some programs to temporarily close.
In Orleans and Genesee counties, Community Action already is reeling from a nearly $1 million cut due to under-enrollment.
“We have made as many cuts as we can possibly cut,” Hungerford said. “We've cut about $600,000. There's 300,000 that I just can't squeeze out of anywhere.”
Part of the issue, Hungerford said, is that a family making minimum wage exceeds the federal income limits. And the largely rural program sees increasing competition not just for teachers but bus drivers with the state’s push for Universal Pre-K, which begins when children are 4 years old.
Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, who represents Genesee and Orleans counties, did not respond to a message seeking comment. She has been both a strong supporter of Head Start and the Trump administration.
Underwood questions the administration’s focus on, first Medicaid and SNAP food assistance, and now Head Start. The proposed changes still must go through a 60-day public comment period and could be changed or amended before being implemented sometime next year.
"We're grateful and I said privileged to have had the opportunity to have run this program for a very, very, very long time,” Underwood said. “And we're constantly looking for ways to improve it, as opposed to dismantling it — which we think will be devastating to the families, it'll be devastating to this community, and the people who access Head Start. And the 700 children who come to us on a daily basis.
“What’s next for them? If not this, then what? That has not been made clear to us at all.”
