12-05-2025
‘They need us.' What would be the impact of Head Start cuts in Pierce County?
A 3-year-old boy with curly brown hair is whipping up pizza on a bright, multi-colored carpet in the corner. Jace decides that the food is cold but doesn't seem to mind. His teacher, Dairi Ray, holds out an empty hand, and Jace lunges forward for a big bite of his imaginary creation: 'Ahhm!'
Jace was one of several toddlers Friday playing make believe, calculating animal shapes, coloring or pushing around a tiny bike in an Early Head Start classroom inside the Multicultural Child and Family Hope Center in Tacoma, just outside the Hilltop neighborhood.
'Some of them just need the love sometimes,' Ray said. 'To me, these kids are my kids.'
The federally funded Head Start program is an important safety net for low-income and homeless families with children up to 5 years old. Established in 1965, it serves at least hundreds of children in Pierce County, 15,000 across the state and more than 750,000 nationwide for free. The program promotes school readiness, provides meals and supplies, such as diapers and formula, and offers health screenings and parental support.
Ayesha Williams' 2-year-old son is also in Early Head Start, and her three older children passed through the program. Williams and her husband work, and she's in school to be an ultrasound technician, meaning it would be a difficult juggling act without the day-long care that's offered Monday through Friday.
'Honestly, I don't know where we would be without them,' Williams said.
Under President Donald Trump's administration, the child-care and preschool-education initiative's future has appeared uncertain.
On May 5, USA Today reported that, despite the Trump administration's proposed elimination of all financial support, there were no changes to Head Start's funding in the White House's proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
Even so, there are concerns that the administration is trying to illegally dismantle the program.
Head Start advocates sued the administration late last month in federal court in Washington, alleging 'a series of unrelenting attacks' on program providers. The lawsuit, whose plaintiffs include Washington state's Head Start association, noted that the federal government disbursed nearly $1 billion less in spending for the program over a three-month period this year compared to in 2024.
The complaint also criticized a federal ban on diversity, equity and inclusion; a temporary sweeping freeze on federal funding in January that forced several providers to close indefinitely; and the abrupt shutdown last month of half of all Office of Head Start locations in the United States, including the four-state Region 10 Office in Seattle, which manages grant funding and oversees local agencies providing program services.
As a result of office closures and layoffs, Head Start agencies in Washington and 22 other states faced 'unprecedented confusion that threatened their ability to operate and, indeed, their very existence,' the lawsuit said.
On Friday, the Senate Democratic caucus sent an open letter to the public, warning that Republicans were trying to cut funding for important programs such as Head Start, according to a news release from the office of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington. The state received more than $189 million from the program in fiscal year 2024, her office said.
The Trump administration had proposed not funding Head Start in a draft budget document, calling the program's elimination consistent with its goals to give states and parents control of education, the Associated Press reported last month.
A message left by The News Tribune for the U.S. Department Health and Human Services, which administers Head Start, was not returned.
Federal grants are awarded to various groups to operate the program, including public agencies, private nonprofits and for-profits, schools and tribal governments.
Head Start is provided at 33 sites in Pierce County, largely at schools, according to HHS data. Most of the sites are in Tacoma.
Tacoma Public Schools operates slightly more than half of all sites, federal data shows. It was awarded a grant in 2019 to serve 400 low-income students within the district's boundaries for five years, according to TPS' 2021-22 annual report on the program.
District spokesperson Kathryn McCarthy said last week that TPS currently serves the same number of Head Start students and didn't anticipate that the figure would change next year.
Asked whether TPS held any concerns about future funding or staffing, McCarthy said only that the district understood that the Trump administration's budget proposal did not include any cuts.
'Access to high-quality early learning is critical to children in our community,' she said. 'We have continued our programming and planning for fall 2025 as normal.'
Puget Sound Educational Service District operates in Pierce and King counties as one of nine regional educational agencies in the state. It subcontracts with other Head Start sites in Pierce County, including at the Multicultural Child and Family Hope Center, federal data shows. PSESD is one of many Head Start funding grantees that gets its dollars from the Region 10 Office.
About 95% of the federal funding it receives directly supports families and more than 1,200 children in Early Head Start or Head Start programs between Pierce and King counties, according to Decca Calloway, PSESD's executive director of Early Learning. Calloway did not immediately have information about how many children were served specifically in Pierce County.
There are a dozen children enrolled for Early Head Start, which is geared toward children under 3, at the Multicultural Child and Family Hope Center, according to the center's early learning director, Amalia Perez. Many more students at the location participate in the state-funded Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, which Calloway said couldn't simply absorb Head Start children if the federal program disappeared.
Brandi Stratton, 46, has taught Head Start for seven years and at the center for 17 altogether. She works with the infant group. In her role, she said, she develops a personal relationship with parents, calling or texting regularly and checking in if their child hasn't been to class in a while, just to make sure everything is OK.
A new family is beginning the program next week, according to Stratton. The mother, whose child is 6 weeks old, says she must return to work to make money.
'They need us,' Stratton said.
On May 5, PSESD's leaders attended a presentation hosted by the liberal policy group, the Center for American Progress, about federal actions affecting Head Start. It was discussed that program providers across the country were seeing funds slow-walked or grants not approved on time.
'What was most insightful is that we're not alone on this journey,' Calloway said in an interview.
A Head Start agency in Sunnyside, a city in south-central Washington, closed its doors in April after not receiving confirmation or updates about the status of renewed funding for weeks, affecting more than 400 children and 70 jobs, according to the federal lawsuit against the Trump administration.
While PSESD hasn't had any issues being able to draw down on funding, Calloway said she lives with the fear that the Trump administration could continue to slow down delivering funds or change its mind about not enacting cuts to Head Start in its final budget.
Stratton was also worried.
'It's scary,' she said. 'It's not fair to the family and these kids.'
If its federal funding reimbursements were delayed, PSESD would have to stop services for more than 1,000 children, according to Calloway, at a time when she said most traditional child care in Pierce and King counties is full with wait lists of eight or nine months. There would also be staffing cuts and funds redirected from much-needed expenses such as classroom air conditioning and playgrounds.
'The other thing is, children can immediately be in danger,' she said, noting that kids experiencing homelessness could be on the street all day long.
While there were concerns about what it could be facing, PSESD already has experienced effects of the Trump administration's agenda, according to Calloway.
The agency has been consistently peppered with questions about what it is doing with the money it receives, despite spelling it out in grant applications; seen a decline in enrollment and attendance as documented families fear their children could be wrongly ensnared in immigration sweeps; and forced to calculate how to continue serving a diverse population without risking funds for violating the DEI ban, she said.
Trump signed an executive order in January that terminated all related DEI activities from the federal government, including programs, grants, contracts and performance requirements, arguing that DEI was divisive and discriminatory. Running afoul of the ban could threaten funding, forcing local governments, schools and others to navigate what they consider broad and vague new standards. For example, Pierce County joined a lawsuit against the federal government earlier this month for tying critical homelessness contracts to requirements that grant funds not be used to promote DEI.
PSESD and other Head Start providers serve the most vulnerable people in their communities by design.
At least 10% of the children served in Early Head Start or Head Start by PSESD have a diagnosed delay or disability, which is a percentage mandated by the federal government, according to Calloway. The agency serves significant numbers of children from other marginalized communities, including impoverished families, immigrants and refugees, and non-English-first speakers.
PSESD also seeks to address specific populations identified by data as being in need, but it's been difficult for the agency to declare that it wants its services to be inclusive and still feel secure about not jeopardizing its grant funding.
'We feel like we run the risk every day,' Calloway said.
As a result, deciphering the way forward is tricky.
Calloway framed the struggle as such: PSESD doesn't want to over-correct for the purposes of compliance and then not be able to serve kids who most need the program, but the agency also must do enough to comply or it could ultimately find itself not being able to serve the children anyway.
'If I'm being really honest with you, we don't know what we need to do,' she said. 'Damned if you do, damned if you don't.'
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