WA Head Start staff locked out and let go due to Trump cuts

The Seattle Office of Head Start has been closed and all employees there have been placed on leave and notified they’ll be terminated, part of a massive wave of layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Seattle is home to the Region 10 Office of Head Start, which oversees the preschool program in Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Oregon.

Head Start is a federally funded preschool program for low-income children and families, which was established in the 1960s. More than 15,000 Washington children are enrolled in Head Start programs, according to the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP.

Although Seattle’s regional office had just six employees, according to the association, it oversees funding, technical help and oversight for more than 70 Head Start grant recipients across the four states.

All six employees were placed on administrative leave until June “without any warning” and terminated, the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP said in an announcement Tuesday.

“They couldn’t even get into their offices to get their stuff,” said Joel Ryan, the association’s executive director. “They just were locked out.”

HHS has also closed regional offices in Boston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco, according to the National Head Start Association.

The Washington association said that as of midday Tuesday, no information had been sent to Head Start grant funding recipients and that it received calls from “panicked” programs about how they could be affected.

Head Start providers are contractors and receive grant money from the federal government to care for and educate children and support their families.

The employees in the Seattle office oversee the distribution of funding and grants. They were responsible for monitoring programs for compliance, including safety, and providing training and technical support.

“Programs really rely on these people quite a bit, to get good information, to stay abreast of best practices and to make sure that their funding is on time,” Ryan said.

He pointed to a program near a highway that uses temporary fencing after storms blew down their fence in March. They applied for grant funding from the Office of Head Start to install permanent fencing, but now they don’t know who will process the application and are concerned it could get lost amid the layoffs.

About one-third of the region’s more than 70 grant recipients face a July 1 grant renewal deadline. If the grants aren’t renewed, the programs will shut down.

Head Start locations will remain open and services are continuing but there could be “bumps ahead,” Ryan said.

The National Head Start Association urged the Trump administration to “reconsider” office closures until a plan has been “created and shared widely.” The Office of Head Start was understaffed to begin with, Ryan said.

“Closing these regional Head Start offices could create delays in essential program support and weaken the system that has successfully served millions of children for decades,” the association said in a statement. The association also noted the program spends less than 1% of its annual funding on federal workers, including regional staff.

The Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP called Tuesday’s office closures “another example of the Trump administration’s continuing assault on Head Start.”

Tuesday’s news followed a chaotic period this winter when the Trump administration abruptly froze federal grant funds and Head Start programs couldn’t access the federal payment system.

Head Start programs have also been warned not to include diversity, equity and inclusion in their work. Last month, the Administration for Children and Families, the branch of HHS that the Office of Head Start falls under, told grant recipients that the Office of Head Start wouldn’t approve federal funds to be used for spending that promoted or took part in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The Administration for Children and Families did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Last week, the Health and Human Services department announced it would restructure the department and reduce the workforce by 10,000, which the agency said would save taxpayers $1.8 billion annually.

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in a statement. “We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., criticized the cuts to the Administration for Children and Families and other divisions within Health and Human Services.

“While the child care crisis crunches families’ budgets, Trump and Musk are focused on firing the very people who help make sure there are safe, affordable child care options available to families in every part of the country,” Murray said. “Decimating this agency may well mean child care and Head Start centers don’t get the funding they need to keep their doors open, and shuttering regional offices will threaten families’ access to quality and reliable Head Start services.”