State Senator Limón leads Bipartisan Coalition to Urge Congress to protect Head Start
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The future of Head Start weighs heavy on champions of childcare and early education like Jennifer MacDonald.
“Do they not value the working class? Do they not value children and families?” said MacDonald, who is the Community’s Children Services Director.
She takes us back to January 28th, when the Trump administration froze access to the organization’s funding.
“It was challenging. You know, it was frozen for 24 hours, elicited a lot of fear and uncertainty,” she said.
The Trump administration had proposed eliminating Head Start's funding in April.
But a budget summary released Friday did not mention head start among programs facing significant cuts, which means the program might be safe when Congress hashes out a budget.
“They would be saving pennies. It would be a drop in the bucket. When you look at their non-discretionary funding,” said MacDonald.
Still, state lawmakers like state Senator Limón are concerned about the future of Head Start, which provides education and childcare for about 85,000 low-income kids in California.
Seven thousand of them live in the Tri-county area.
“When you do invest, you see more students who are prepared. You see kids transition and be ready for education. You see issues related to health, access to nutritional food and awareness and overall development,” said State Senator Monique Limón.
Limón says cutting Head Start could hurt the local economy.
“While the students would be impacted and they would not have a place to go between birth and five, their families would also be impacted. And that means that you're going to see workers and employers who are going to be impacted by the loss of child care spots in our state and early care.”
Communify, which runs Head Start locally, says for every $1 spent on head start, it's estimated that $7 to $9 is gained in economic benefits.
Three-quarters of the state legislature has signed on to Senator Limón’s bipartisan letter.
