Children at The Playing Field, a Madison child care center that participates in the federal Head Start program. (Courtesy of The Playing Field)

On Jan. 27, the Trump administration called for federal agencies to implement a sweeping freeze on large amounts of grants, loans and other assistance, creating widespread panic across the country — particularly for families dependent on Head Start for child care. More than a week into  the freeze, many of Wisconsin’s Head Start programs still can’t access the funds they need to stay open.

Head Start provides funding to local organizations to run free, comprehensive preschool and early learning programs for families living in poverty. Many of the local organizations, or grantees, running these programs also provide child care services to families who receive child care subsidies and parents who pay for child care without assistance. 

Wisconsin has 39 Head Start providers serving 16,000 children and employing 4,500 staff across the state. Reach Dane’s Head Start program in Madison is one of many Wisconsinites rely on. 

The day after the announcement, Jen Bailey, executive director of the program, said her program and others  were unable to access funds because  their payment management system was shut down. She described the overwhelming chaos and fear that morning as she wondered how to keep this vital service afloat. 

The Trump administration initially said this freeze was necessary to ensure funding aligns with the president’s priorities. Normally, Jen and her staff would have a direct line of communication to the federal Office of Head Start, but when the freeze was announced she described a lack of communication with the federal government — leaving her and her staff to rely on news articles and press conferences to glean any insight into the meaning of the mayhem.

Across Wisconsin, on the first morning of the freeze, parents received emails  from their child care providers warning of potential closures to programs. On Tuesday afternoon,  the Trump administration walked back its initial inclusion of Head Start in the government-wide freeze. But  some programs had already made the decision to close their doors Wednesday — leaving parents scrambling to find potential backups for child care and wondering if they would be able to go to work. Program staff at those centers were also unsure if their next paychecks would be delayed or if they even still had jobs. 

As of Tuesday, Feb. 4, seven providers serving roughly 3,000 children had still not  received funding from the federal government since the freeze went into effect. The National Head Start Association reported that the funding issues are widespread across the country. At least 45 Head Start grantees serving nearly 20,000 young children are still having problems  accessing their funds. 

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be the last time Wisconsin families dependent on these programs experience uncertainty and even panic under the current administration. The radical far-right playbook Project 2025 proposed eliminating Head Start entirely, which would increase the number of Americans living in a child care desert and particularly harm child care supply in rural communities. If the leaders in the Trump Administration  who helped author Project 2025  had it their way, no Head Start programs would be opening their doors to the vulnerable families in need of services. 

Fifty-four percent of young children under the age of 5 in Wisconsin live in a child care desert, and the high cost of child care pushes 134,000 families across the U.S. into poverty every year. What Wisconsin parents and families need now is to know that their current child care arrangements are secure while policymakers work on solutions to build supply and bring costs down. 

Over a week since the publication of the freeze memo, it’s obvious the stress and harm inflicted on families and providers was created not only thoughtlessly, but needlessly. It’s been hard to keep track of all the walk-backs and attempts at “clarification” from the Trump administration that only sowed more confusion. Most recently, the administration announced it was  rescinding the freeze memo after a judge had blocked the spending freeze. That about-face came  less than 48 hours after the same administration  sent federal programs and the people dependent on them into a tailspin. So what was all the chaos and confusion for? 

The frantically mixed messages from the Trump administration tell us the president and the people working for him  spend very little time thinking through how their actions will affect everyday Americans, especially parents. When you play unnecessary games with trillions of dollars in federal funding that millions of people depend on, real people suffer. We’re barely two weeks into this new administration. How many more threats to their livelihood can Wisconsin families and providers like Jen expect over the next four years? 

Children outside with a child care teacher at The Playing Field, a Madison child care center that participates in the federal Head Start program. (Courtesy of The Playing Field)

More than half a dozen child care centers that serve low-income families through the federal Head Start program have been waiting for more than a week to be repaid for expenses they’ve already incurred for payroll, supplies and food for the children in their care.

Head Start and Early Head Start are federally funded programs that provide early education and child care to children from low-income families. Wisconsin has 39 Head Start child care providers serving 16,000 children across the state and employing about 4,500 staff, said Jenny Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association.

“The chaos and uncertainty have been deeply earth-shattering,” Mauer told the Wisconsin Examiner on Tuesday.

Mauer said providers across the state who receive federal grant payments for Head Start have seen delays in receiving their payments. She has been in touch with all 39 and, as of Tuesday, there were seven providers serving about 3,000 children that haven’t been paid by the federal government for at least a week, she said.

“This is going to get really serious if this doesn’t get resolved soon,” Mauer said. “We’re not getting much in the way of answers. We’re not getting good explanations about anything. It’s incredibly frustrating.”

The Head Start payments stopped at the same time that a Trump administration memo announced a week ago that a broad array of federal grant and loan payments would be suspended. Two federal judges have ordered the White House to halt the suspension in payments, but there have been widespread reports of funds that have still not been released.

“People think the freeze is over,” said Rep. Andrew Hysell (D-Sun Prairie), whose district includes a child care provider affected and who posted a Facebook video decrying the federal action. “Yet these [federal] agencies are not providing the funds.”

The National Head Start Association, a membership organization for Head Start child care providers, has reported similar problems across the country.

“We’re definitely not alone, that’s for sure,” Mauer said.

Reach Dane, a Madison child care agency that provides child care for about 1,000 children in Dane and Green counties, is waiting on $600,000 that the nonprofit is due from Head Start, said Jen Bailey, Reach Dane’s executive director. The organization had to tap into its bank line of credit after payments failed to come through in the last week.

The funds are needed to make payroll for Reach Dane’s staff of 250, including child care teachers, people in food service and bus drivers who pick up and drop off children in the program.

“We’re kind of flying blind in a chaos storm, trying to figure out what is happening and why,” said Bailey, who is also president of the Wisconsin Head Start Association board.

Federal payments to Head Start programs are reimbursements for expenses providers have already incurred. Providers are accustomed to logging into a federal portal, submitting the expense information and receiving a reimbursement in about 24 hours.

Reach Dane typically submits its requests for payment once a week or so, Bailey said. A week ago Monday, Reach Dane was unable to log in to the portal at all, however.

Late Tuesday, Jan. 28, the portal was once again accessible, and Reach Dane submitted a payment request. A second payment request was submitted on Friday, Jan. 31.

“We have not received either of those,” Bailey said Tuesday. “As of right now both still show as pending in the system.”

In addition to serving Head Start children through its own child care centers, Reach Dane also works with private child care providers who enroll children from low-income families.

One private partner is The Playing Field, a nonprofit that operates two child care centers in Madison, one of them on the city’s West Side where the enrollment includes Head Start children. Reach Dane pays The Playing Field monthly to cover its Head Start kids.

Participating in Head Start is part of The Playing Field’s mission, said Abbi Kruse, who founded The Playing Field a decade ago with the goal of creating “an early childhood education program that any family would choose for their child.” From the start the organization’s model was to enroll children “from really different socio-economic and racial backgrounds,” she said, overcoming segregation in all its forms.

At the West Side location, enrollment is about one-third children on scholarship, one-third children whose parents can afford the full cost, and one-third who are covered under Head Start or Early Head Start. “Without that funding, they could not attend our program,” Kruse said. “Without that funding, we definitely could not sustain our model.”

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Kruse said that Reach Dane sends a Head Start payment once a month to The Playing Field, which received the February payment on Monday. But if Reach Dane can’t resume receiving its federal funds, “obviously that’s not sustainable for them to continue doing that,” she said.

Some of the children served by her organization are from families living in shelters, sleeping in cars or hotels for the unhoused, for example, Kruse said. They may rely on The Playing Field not just for child care but for meals and other support, such as parenting classes.

“There’s a lot of support for families in our model, and to rip that away from people is just cruel,” Kruse said.

Mauer said that providers unable to collect the federal funds they’re due are scrambling to meet the shortfall.

The federal government requires that recipients must disburse the money they get within three days after collecting it. “They’re not sitting on a set of federal reserves to pay people,” Mauer said. “This is money for service already rendered.”

Providers who are on the hook for funds “are doing everything they can to keep their doors open,” she said. “They’re talking to creditors, they’ve opened up lines of credit, they’re talking to community partners and moving things around.”

If Head Start providers don’t survive, the impact on employers could be severe.

“The majority of folks that come to Head Start are working families,” Mauer said. Without child care, “that would mean those parents would have to make tough choices. It’s a terrible situation.”