Starting next week, 177 children in Highland County’s Head Start program will have nowhere to go. Their parents will be forced to scramble for a child care solution in an area with few alternatives.
Meanwhile, 45 Head Start teachers and staff at Highland County Community Action Agency will be furloughed. Other employees have seen their hours cut to 32 per week as they try to stock the food pantry in anticipation of cuts to food assistance.
These are the impossible decisions that face Julia Wise, executive director of the Highland County Community Action Agency, due to the federal government shutdown.
Since Oct. 1, members of Congress haven’t reached a compromise to pay for basic government services, and that has led to more than 700,000 federal workers being furloughed while just as many work without pay.
A month into the gridlock, Ohio’s families are starting to feel the impact.
Wise oversees one of seven Head Start locations statewide that face closure after Nov. 1 because federal dollars have run out. Head Start is a federally funded program that provides free child care and early childhood education for children up to age five from lower-income families.
“It’s going to hurt our staff. It’s going to hurt those families,” Wise said. “When I had kids, I was able to leave them with my mom to watch them. But in this day and age, all parents have to work to get by. Grandmas and grandpas are now employed to get by in today’s society.”
Those seven programs, most of them in rural counties, serve nearly 3,700 of the state’s 27,000 Head Start children, according to the Ohio Head Start Association, Inc. These programs serve 3,500 families, 75 pregnant women, 112 children in foster care and 150 children experiencing homelessness.
For example, the West Ohio Community Action Partnership in Allen County and the Community Action Organization of Scioto County plan to shutter their Head Start programs temporarily. The Coshocton County Head Start, Inc. was able to remain open until Nov. 13 thanks to a large donation and matching funds from the community.
“It’s been a disruptive period,” said Julie Stone, executive director of the Ohio Head Start Association, Inc., adding that the vulnerable families who rely on Head Start have felt the biggest disruption. “They are the collateral damage of this shutdown.”
In the meantime, Wise and her staff are sending children home with learning bags similar to the ones they used during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. She’s making sure that furloughed staff will continue to have health insurance. And Wise is hoping and praying for an end to the federal shutdown.
“I’ve been here 37 years as a director,” Wise said. “I’ve never had to face anything like this before.”
USA TODAY contributed to this article.
State government reporter Jessie Balmert can be reached at jbalmert@gannett.com or @jbalmert on X.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: As federal shutdown continues, 3,700 Head Start children in Ohio could have nowhere to go
Reporting by Jessie Balmert, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
