By Claire Carlson
The Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate the federally funded childcare program Head Start will disproportionately harm low-income rural families who could be left without childcare if the service is defunded.
In early April 2025, a draft budget proposal for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealed the Administration’s plan to eliminate Head Start in favor of “returning education to the States and increasing parental choice.”
The decision would slash all federal funding to the country’s 3,300 child care and early learning programs that rely on Head Start grants to operate, affecting nearly one million children and thousands of people employed at Head Start facilities across the country.
A report from the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy research institute, found that nearly 46% of funded Head Start enrollment slots during the 2023-2024 school year were located in rural congressional districts, meaning rural families rely on the program more than their urban or suburban counterparts. In many of these rural areas, Head Start is the only licensed childcare provider in the community, offering essential early childhood development services and child supervision for working parents.
“If those people didn’t have childcare, there’s a high chance they wouldn’t be in the workforce. And it benefits all of us to have people doing jobs that provide services that we all depend on,” said Casey Peeks, senior director of Early Childhood Policy at the Center for American Progress and co-author of the report.
While Head Start centers are bracing for Trump’s budget reconciliation bill, which is expected to be released mid-May, some have already experienced the fallout of funding and staff cuts at the state and federal level.
On April 1, 2025, five of Head Start’s 10 regional offices – which administer federal grants – were closed and all staff were laid off at the Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle offices.
“The chances that all of these different grants are going to get processed in a timely way so these programs can continue to operate seems very unlikely just by the sheer numbers of grants that the [consolidated] offices will have to process,” said Joel Ryan, executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start and Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program.
In Central Washington’s lower Yakima Valley, the Head Start grantee Inspire Development Centers had to suspend childcare services in mid-April because they did not receive notice of reimbursement status on their grants before payroll was due. More than 400 children and 70 employees were affected by the temporary closures, and families were left scrambling to find childcare in this largely rural, farmworking region.
The funds were eventually delivered after widespread media coverage of the closure, but Jorge Castillo, CEO of Inspire Development Centers, told Northwest Public Broadcasting that the funding will only get them to the end of their 2025 program year.
A similar fate awaits other Head Start facilities in Washington. Jessica Lara is the assistant director of Head Start for Educational Service District 105, which serves four primarily rural counties in Central Washington: Yakima, Kittitas, Klickitat, and Grant counties.
They benefit from Head Start, Early Head Start, and Migrant and Seasonal Head Start grants. Lara said they’re no stranger to slow and delayed payments on these grants, but this is the first time their future has been so uncertain.
“We live kind of on the edge for how quickly or how long those funds take to come,” Lara said. “It’s a reimbursement process. So we’ve already spent the funds by the time we’re asking for them.”
Their grants last until June 30, 2025. If they don’t get notification by June 1 of grant renewal for the 2026 program year, Lara said they will have to inform families and employees that they will close their Head Start facilities on July 1. “If we receive some sort of notice after that June 1st notification [to families and employees] goes out, we will of course resume services as normal,” Lara said. “But we’re just kind of living without a lot of faith and trust that the funds are going to come on time, or that they’ll come at all.”
The Trump administration wants to eliminate Head Start as part of a larger push to rid education of federal “red tape.” On March 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, which Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said would “empower states to take charge and advocate for and implement what is best for students, families, and educators in their communities.” The phrasing is similar to the language the HHS budget proposal used to explain the plan to eliminate Head Start, claiming it will increase parental choice.
But Lara said this is a complete misunderstanding of the services Head Start provides. Her Head Start district has a policy council made up of parents who approve curricula, outcome goals, and expenses. “We are a community-based, family-driven program, no matter what. And our families have a big say in what happens,” she said.
Lara has personal experience with the program. She first interacted with Head Start when her son was enrolled at one of their childcare centers while they were homeless. Lara said the resources Head Start provided to her son, who is disabled, and herself were fundamental in getting them back on their feet. She decided to work for Head Start because of everything it provided her and her family.
“There are so many things that have happened in my life, but I would not be where I am today without the services that Head Start provided in a rural community,” Lara said. “So it’s devastating to think about that loss for those who come after me.”
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