CHICAGO — The Trump administration’s decision to close a regional Head Start office in Chicago this week has raised questions about how the program, which serves more than 28,000 children and low-income families in Illinois, will continue to operate in coming weeks and months.

The federal government shut down the Chicago office Tuesday, along with regional Head Start offices in Boston, New York, San Francisco and Seattle, according to the nonprofit National Head Start Association.

The day the regional offices closed, “a lot of Head Start grant recipients woke up terrified, wondering what this means,” said Tommy Sheridan, the association’s deputy director. The regional offices that were closed employed roughly 75 to 100 people and provided support to Head Start grant recipients, he said.

“For families and for staff we want to be very explicit: There’s been no cut in funding that’s been shared. Programs are still operational and programs are going to do everything in their power to keep services flowing,” Sheridan said. “However we are concerned as we look to the future.”

The regional offices were the pipeline to federal funding for Illinois Head Start programs, which were left unsure who to contact and are concerned their programs might have to shut down if they don’t receive funding by the start of their next fiscal year, which for some begins May 1, according to Lauri Morrison-Frichtl, executive director of the Illinois Head Start Association.

“Obviously, on Tuesday morning, my number one question was to ask, ‘When will we confirm that we’re expecting to receive the rest of our obligated funds by May 1?’ But there was no one to ask,” said Celena Sarillo, executive director of Start Early, a nonprofit public-private partnership serving over 2,000 children in Chicago. “That was just like a complete shock to all of us.”

Head Start grant recipients were instructed to use a specific online portal for communications about grants going forward in an April 3 letter from Laurie Todd-Smith, deputy assistant secretary for Early Childhood Development, which operates under the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

The closures of the regional Head Start offices are part of a broader restructuring of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that the Trump administration says will save taxpayers $1.8 billion a year.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told the Tribune Friday morning that Head Start programs are not in any danger.

“All statutorily required programs will remain intact, and as a result of the reorganization, will be better positioned to execute on Congress’s statutory intent,” said Emily Hilliard, deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “We remain committed to providing continued support to Head Start programs as they work to meet the needs of their communities.”

Head Start program directors can “reach out to their designated regional offices or the appropriate Head Start program contact within the Administration for Children and Families” for questions related to grant funding and other support, an Hilliard said.

Nonetheless, Head Start administrators say the lack of a Chicago regional office could create issues. Morrison-Frichtl said the online assistance portal is not enough to support everyday needs, and she said Illinois Head Start programs have not received communication as of Friday afternoon on who their designated regional offices or program contacts are.

“I would be surprised if you had a response back within two weeks,” Morrison-Frichtl said about the portal. “I mean, they just downsized these regions and so all the large states, for I don’t know how many programs, are all going here, and there’s no one point for you in your program to handle your questions.”

Head Start programs have received federal funding since the preschool effort was started more than 60 years ago as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. While the programs have historically received bipartisan support in Congress, there have been instances, such as in 2003, where program funding has received criticism from both sides of the aisle. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation policy group thought to have influence on the Trump White House, advocated for Head Start’s elimination.

For Sarillo’s programs, the federal funding supports immunizations, vision, dental, hearing services for low-income families, along with individualized lesson plans for children with disabilities, professional development for the early childhood workforce, and other support for parents and families in the Chicago area.

“Some of our children are from the most underresourced and marginalized communities,” Sarillo said “Our families have started having real concerns about what this means and if their child still has a safe place to go. All of that has really left children and families across Illinois that are accessing Head Start programs, and specifically in Chicago as well, just in the state of real, kind of despair and concern.”

Sara Mixer, executive director of Parent and Child Together for West Central Illinois, said that regional managers “provided that day-to-day support to agencies whenever we needed that, and we don’t have that anymore.”

“The fear is that any process is just going to take so much longer now, because even if the plan is to have the other existing regional offices absorb the states, it’s just going to take that much longer, which will ultimately directly impact the services to children and families,” Mixer said.

The Head Start regional office wasn’t the only federal HHS regional unit shuttered in Chicago this week. The regional Office of Child Care in Chicago – which, like Head Start, operates under HHS’ Administration for Children and Families – also closed Tuesday, said Ruth Friedman, who was director of the Office of Child Care under President Joe Biden.

The Office of Child Care distributes Child Care and Development Fund money to states, which is used to help low-income parents pay for child care while they work. Though that funding has not been cut, she said the regional office worked closely with states to help them maximize how that money could be used to serve families.

“Gutting the Office of Child Care in this way, ultimately what it’s going to mean is child care is going to become less safe, it’s going to become more expensive, and it’s going to be harder for families to find,” Friedman said.

The regional office closures have not been the only issues for Head Start since Trump took office. An executive order issued in mid-March required Head Start programs to remove initiatives involving diversity, equity and inclusion is also creating barriers to accessing funding, Morrison-Frichtl said.

She said the federal Head Start office told her programs are now required to certify that they’ve removed all DEI initiatives before they can receive grant funding, but Sarillo said that right now there is no one to clarify what specific DEI initiatives are included in this order.

“Anyone that is currently in the process of reapplying for their grant is going through that right now, but there’s no one to talk to in the regional office to even verify and work with them on, like, what language can I include?” Sarillo said.

Morrison-Frichtl said there’s still confusion on what the order applies to in day-to-day services, such as if it applies to services for dual language learners.

“It’s so hard in our work because we have books in our classroom that reflect the culture we’re serving,” Morrison-Frichtl said. “We’re required to find teachers that reflect the culture and ethnicity of the group of children in the classroom. All of our materials need to reflect our cultures, from the dolls in the classroom to our materials. There’s a lot there.”

Following the order, Illinois Head Start programs removed language regarding DEI topics, changed eligibility criteria, changed code of conduct guidelines within personnel policies and will no longer provide funds for Head Start staff to take required DEI coursework for teacher certification.

Illinois Head Start programs also struggled to access funding for weeks after the Trump’s administration’s federal freeze at the end of January. One program shut down because it could not pay its employees, Morrison-Frichtl said.

“It was a mess,” said Kelly Neidel, executive director of the Two Rivers Head Start in Aurora, the program that briefly shut down. “Canceling and then starting back up again. It causes uncertainty with staff, and I’ve worked there 35 years and this was probably one of my worst days there.”

Head Start programs have been able to consistently access funding since mid-February, and a spokesperson for the federal Administration for Children and Families told the Tribune in mid-February that the payment system website was experiencing technical issues, unrelated to the federal freeze.

In the midst of confusion from Head Start programs across the state, Sarillo has started a campaign for families and children to speak out. Over 3,000 emails and 3,000 calls have been sent in support of Head Start to congressional legislators from the state, according to Sarillo.

“Our hope is that this was just a disruption and that this is not any indication of any changes that are going to be made to Head Start funding, which again, plays such a critical role in supporting children and families in early development in Chicago,” Sarillo said.

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