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This March, Mary Ellen Lykins, a director of 10 Head Start centers serving around 200 kids in northwest Washington, submitted a seemingly simple application to the federal government: She wanted to convert one of her partial-day preschool classrooms into a full-day program, extending the hours to better support the families she serves.

Under the existing model, one group of kids comes for the morning and another group comes in the afternoon. A full day of care would help working families and provide kids with twice as much time in a trusted learning environment.

Six months later, she’s still awaiting a response, leaving parents in limbo about whether they’ll have childcare for seven hours each day or just 3½, as they prepare to send their children to her program in just three weeks. 

“We’ve been working on enrollment, on recruitment, on getting families into the system,” she said, “(but) families don’t want part day, so at this point, we’re going to have to backtrack.”

Historically, such a request would have gone to a program specialist at Lykins’s regional office, who would have resolved it within about 45 days, she said. But, in January 2025, the Washington regional office was shuttered — along with four others across the country — consolidating Head Start’s 10 regional offices to five and completely upending the processes program directors had come to rely on. The consolidated regional offices are each responsible for more programs, so now, Lykins reports to a new office that serves far more grantees and has reduced authority and capacity for support.

“It’s a systemic nightmare,” Lykins said, adding that this request was just one of a number “that have not been responded to” over the past year and a half. Ultimately, these delays harm families and lead to additional costs, she said.

Lykins’s experience is hardly unique. In a recent survey of 157 Head Start providers from 33 states, about how the challenges they’re facing are impacting children and families, nearly 79% of respondents reported an increase in administrative burden since the closures of regional offices, and 90% reported that the level of ongoing support has declined within the new structure. The survey, conducted by the Washington State Association of Head Start and Together for Head Start, a national advocacy campaign, was distributed directly to Head Start program directors nationally. The results showed that these impacts aren’t merely bureaucratic: more than 75% of providers reported that the delays and lack of support have resulted in significant impacts on children, families and staff.

Many providers reported in the survey that significant decision delays have led to increased costs and damaged community partnerships and have left program leaders feeling frustrated and isolated. All respondents had experienced at least one decision delay, and in many cases the delays amounted to double or triple the wait time they used to experience when their regional offices were still functioning.

“When we started reading through the results, what struck us was that it’s not like there’s one big smoking gun here. There’s just so many people who are experiencing so many frustrations and delays that it is really a systemic problem,” said Katy Warren, deputy director of the Washington State Association of Head Start who helped lead the survey. “Every day that a Head Start director goes to work, they don’t know whether they’re going to be able to navigate these systems that used to be fairly smooth,” she said, explaining that providers now wait weeks or months for communication from their regional offices.

The survey results were released just days after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a proposed rule change that would drastically reduce Head Start’s Performance Standards. Kennedy said his department was “removing unnecessary bureaucracy” that would return the program to its roots, but critics argue that if these changes are instituted they will effectively gut Head Start’s core. 

The updated rules would eliminate requirements for standards such as low adult-to-child ratios; services such as medical and dental care; developmental screenings and individualized services for children with disabilities. It would also require most programs to conduct all education in English only. A 60-day public comment period is currently open and will run through Oct. 6. 

In many ways, the closures of the regional offices and the proposed rule change go hand-in-hand, according to Warren.

“One of the reasons why we are skeptical about the good intentions of the administration to improve the operations of Head Start programs and services is that we haven’t seen a real commitment to that over the last year,” she said. Staff layoffs, a shift of decision making from the regional offices to the Office of Head Start, and administrative delays — often stemming from a lack of clear and timely communication, have “not indicated a priority of efficiency and effective service to children,” Warren added.

Head Start has come under threat repeatedly since the start of the second Trump administration. In addition to the consolidation of the regional offices, the program has faced proposed budget cuts, funding freezes and delays, and workforce reduction.

Providers and grantees who reported to the shuttered regional offices largely heard about the fallout through word of mouth and panicked texts and LinkedIn posts. Many said they didn’t receive any official notice from the federal government until a boilerplate email arrived in their inboxes two days after the change and a number of them told The 74 they went for months without a replacement program specialist.

In total, the regional staff who were laid off or furloughed — some of whom had worked at the offices for decades — served 22 states, a number of territories, and hundreds of thousands of children, pregnant women and their families. Local program leaders had long relied on specialists within their regional offices to help navigate everything from grant proposals to building repairs.

The recent survey asked providers to share the impacts of a number of these hurdles on the children and families they serve, with a particular focus on the closures of the regional offices. 

“What took 5 minutes now takes hours,” wrote one grantee from Washington.

“I have received no individual support or check in to see how I or the program is doing since the transition,” wrote a new Head Start program director in Illinois.

“It’s a constant whir of panic,” wrote a third from Virginia.

Nearly half of all respondents said delays or uncertainty around funding, along with reduction in staff support from the Office of Head Start has led to difficulty hiring and retaining qualified teaching staff. One-quarter reported additional administrative burden leading to delays in communication with parents and just over 17% reported an inability to purchase or repair equipment.

Lauri Frichtl, executive director of the Illinois Head Start Association, a nonprofit that supports Head Start programs across the state, said that last winter, one of her program’s buildings flooded after pipes froze and burst over the holiday break. She recalled one of the program directors reaching out to the Office of Head Start for assistance, but that help didn’t come in time. Ultimately, they were forced to move forward without federal guidance “because they couldn’t wait,” she said. “You need immediate answers when you’re in that crisis.”

Frichtl said that before the Illinois regional office closed, she received quick and helpful responses to similar issues.

“Usually you had your program specialist and you had a relationship with them and you were in direct contact with them, and you had immediate feedback, and everything worked well. You may not have liked all of their responses, but at least you had feedback,” she said. “Now it’s kind of just up in the air. You wait and see.”

Darcee Kilsdonk, executive director​ of Clackamas County Children’s Commission, a nonprofit organization that runs 13 Head Start centers in Oregon, has also experienced administrative delays and challenges after the loss of her regional office. Last August, following inquiries from parents, she submitted a request to redesign the center’s schedules to align them with local public schools.

Historically, such an application would have been resolved in a month or two, she said. But a year later, she’s still awaiting approval. “Every single month I ask about it. Every single month they say ‘it’s in process.’” 

Eventually, Kilsdonk gave up and decided to prioritize the needs of her families, making the schedule change in defiance of the Office of Head Start. “I was very open with them that I was going to do it anyway,” she said.

Since the closures of regional offices, Kilsdonk said she has wasted an incredible amount of time trying to navigate the new system, including a four-month period during which she had no program specialist assigned to her at all.

“If taxpayers knew what this means to the most vulnerable children and families, I cannot believe that they wouldn’t say, ‘Enough is enough,’” she said.

Not all providers reported such stark changes and turmoil though: Just under 25% of respondents said their program had not experienced related impacts at all.

Wanda Minick, executive director of the Florida Head Start Association, said that in her nine years doing this work, “we’ve always had an issue with communication from our regional office, point blank. There has always been a delay in response.” While Florida’s regional office was spared during the closures, it still faces increased burdens since they’ve taken on additional states. Over the past year and a half, she said the delays have largely “stayed status quo.”

In all, the survey’s findings point to an already stressed system facing mounting hurdles and unpredictability, leaving providers and families unsure about the program’s future.

“It just feels like a huge, heavy blanket over the top of a program,” said Warren. “They’re constantly under this heavy weight of uncertainty and delay.”