Changes could be coming to N.Y.’s Head Start programs

New York’s top Senate Democrat is speaking out and calling on members of his chamber to stand up to the Trump administration.

It’s over efforts to overhaul the early childhood program Head Start.

Early reports say the administration is planning to “gut its quality standards and replace it with regulations that would leave most of the specifics up to state and local law.”

“Every single senator who cares about Head Start needs to stand up to this effort that undercuts our children, particularly the most vulnerable,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Schumer made the plea while standing on the Senate floor Tuesday.

Since its founding in the 1960s, Head Start has largely had bipartisan support.

“Trump will soon announce plans to gut Head Start without any thought of how it will hurt hundreds of thousands of children,” said Schumer.

Head Start was established to help fight poverty and as Nora Moran, the director of policy and advocacy for the United Neighborhood Houses says, it’s long been the “gold standard” for early childhood development and learning.

The United Neighborhood Houses is a membership organization of New York settlement houses which have hundred-plus year-old community centers that work throughout the state of New York to establish economic advancement.

“Many of them are large Head Start providers and were some of the earliest Head Start providers in New York and have believed in this model for many years,” said Moran.

In the state of New York, just over 50,000 children are enrolled in Head Start. That number ballons to nearly 716,000 nationwide. This is according to HeadStart.gov.

According to published reports, the Trump administration is considering a full overhaul of the program which is currently run through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Head Start is a little bit of a different model than some other childcare programs in that the federal government works directly with providers and states across the country,” said Moran.

According to the Associated Press, some changes could include “requiring more documentation from homeless or unemployed parents and could bar parents who are in the United States illegally from enrolling their children even if their children are U.S. citizens. It’s unclear if these changes will make the final proposal.”

“This is not how we treat our public school system,” said Moran. “We don’t say that parents have to be working for your child to attend public school. We don’t ask about immigration status.”

Following his comments on the Senate floor Tuesday, Spectrum News 1 reached out to Schumer’s office to see if there was an anticipated impact to the state of New York.

Spectrum News 1 also reached out to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and did not hear immediately back from either.