KC-area parents, providers warn of ‘devastating impact’ if children’s program ends
Alexandria Dwight’s older children all attended The Rock at Stony Point Learning Center, a Head Start on the bottom level of a modest red-brick church in Kansas City, Kansas. Her youngest son, who turns 1 next week, is enrolled now.
Dwight doesn’t want to contemplate her family’s future without Head Start as President Donald Trump’s administration weighs a budget proposal to eliminate the 60-year-old federal program.
“I don’t want to think about that,” said Dwight, a social worker who lives in KCK. “I don’t know all the specifics and all the details around it. I just know my child is flourishing here … He’s growing, he’s having a good time.”
“He’s really just blossoming. I just don’t want anything to stop that process for him.”
Head Start programs across the Kansas City region – and the United States – are scrambling to defend themselves amid sudden fears Trump will seek to cut off funding. Head Start provides care and services to thousands of children in and around KC who come from low-income families, are in foster care or have special needs.
The metro is home to nearly 40 Head Start and Early Head Start locations. Early Head Start helps pregnant women and children younger than 3, while Head Start helps children ages 3-5.
A draft of a federal budget document calls for eliminating Head Start’s funding, the Associated Press reported last week. It includes deep cuts at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the early childhood program.
Congress will decide whether to continue paying for the program or not. While presidents offer budget plans, lawmakers need to approve spending, setting the stage for an aggressive push by Head Start providers to shore up support for the program in Congress.
Two Kansas City-area Democratic lawmakers have staked out strong positions in support of Head Start. At least one Kansas City-area Republican isn’t ruling anything in or out.
The draft budget document says eliminating the program is consistent with the Trump administration’s “goals of returning control of education to the states and increasing parental control,” the AP reported.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which the Trump administration has used as a blueprint for many of its actions, calls for an end to Head Start.
Paula Neth, president and CEO at The Family Conservancy, a KCK-based nonprofit focused on children, warned ending Head Start would deliver a devastating blow to the region with painful consequences rippling out across communities. Head Start not only prepares children for kindergarten but in many instances frees up parents to work or pursue education.
Kansas received more than $92 million in federal Head Start funding in the most recent fiscal year. Missouri received $215 million. Across both states, the funding is enough to pay for spots for nearly 20,000 children in the program.
The Family Conservancy holds a roughly $7 million annual Head Start grant that funds two family child care programs and seven center-based programs, including The Rock at Stony Point.
“It’s going to have a devastating impact that’s going to last for generations,” Neth said of the possible end of Head Start. “I mean, we’re going to have kids who haven’t been able to get that really strong foundation, showing up to kindergarten without those skills they need to set them up for success.”
And families may need to leave their jobs or schooling if their kids don’t have anywhere else to go, she added.
“These are already families that are our lowest income in our community,” Neth said, “and this is just really giving them the tools and support they need so that they can really, like we all want, to be able to support our family.”
Head Start is ‘so important’
If Head Start ended, Dwight said she would have to lean on family members for child care.
She said her mother comes to mind as someone who could step in, but her mother also has health issues. Dwight’s job comes with some flexibility, but she predicted she would have to take more days off if the program wasn’t available.
While The Rock at Stony Point plays a valuable role in providing child care while she works, Dwight praised how Head Start adds further value, enriching her child’s life as it did for her older children. The center helps children learn to socialize and build friendships, along with fundamental life skills like sharing or washing hands.
A typical day at The Rock at Stony Point centers on a curriculum that keeps children on a routine schedule, while also giving them choices in how they learn. During time outside, a child might be able to choose whether to ride a tricycle, run or write on the ground with chalk.
Head Start also screens children to identify potential learning impediments early on, things like a hearing or visual impairment. Dwight said her oldest child, now 16, struggled a bit with speech when she was younger, but Head Start was able to “capture that” and monitor her child as she grew.
“I just feel like my kids, every time they went to Head Start, I was able to see something new about them kind of open up,” Dwight said.
None of that happens by accident.
Lee Howell, director of The Rock at Stony Point, on Tuesday led The Star on a tour of the center’s classrooms. Nearly everything seems intended to reinforce key learning concepts for the roughly two dozen children currently enrolled.
In the “Lion’s Classroom,” for toddlers, a rug features basic shapes and colors. In another, various shape cut-outs like a star and a pentagon are taped to the wall with their names in English and Spanish.
Howell, who also pastors The Rock at Stony Point Church, said the center has been at its current home for the past decade.
“I hope and I pray that it stays open, that we get a chance to keep Head Start going. Because Head Start is so important,” she said.
Natasha Moore, a preschool teacher at the center, knows deeply Head Start’s importance to parents. She had four children go through the program. While they’re teens now, she said at the time she was “like other moms” in between jobs.
“And that’s when I sat down and talk to Miss Lee and she was like, ‘Do you like children?’ I was like, ‘I love children,’” Moore said. “And she was like, ‘Well, do you want a job?’”
Moore has worked at the center for nearly 10 years and recently earned an associate’s degree in early childhood education. What attracted her to the job – and keeps her working at the center today – is the kindness of teachers and administrators, she said.
“I would walk through the door and actually see how loving they were towards the kids. And that really caught my eye during that time,” Moore said.
Child care workforce critical
While Head Start supporters are quick to champion the program, they acknowledge it faces headwinds even without the looming funding fight. The child care industry across the Kansas City region and much of the nation struggles to recruit and retain enough workers.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem, and many operations haven’t fully recovered. The National Head Start Association reported that at the start of the 2023-2024 program year, what it called a “workforce crisis” had appeared to stabilize but remained a significant problem.
In turn, personnel shortages only widen the gap between the demand for child care and the supply.
Wyandotte County has 14,193 children under age 6, according to data compiled by Child Care Aware of Kansas, which estimates potential 6,528 additional child care spots are needed to address the local demand. The organization estimates nearly 14,300 additional spots may potentially be needed in Johnson County, which has roughly 43,600 children under age 6.
In Missouri, Jackson County has just under 53,000 children under age 6, but the licensed child care programs in the county only have just over 23,100 slots, according to Child Care Aware of Missouri. Clay County has a little under 18,000 children under 6 and about 5,300 licensed child care slots. Platte County has 7,460 children under six and 1,662 licensed slots.
The Rock at Stony Point is licensed for 51 children but only has 23 currently, despite a wait list, because of staffing challenges. At one point, the center was full but the pandemic “is when it really kind of hit,” Howell said.
“It’s the teachers. We’ve got to get teachers before we can be able to open that classroom,” Howell said. The center employs 15 staff members.
Even if Congress keeps funding Head Start, lingering uncertainty over the program’s future could risk recruiting and retaining teachers and other personnel, according to Neth from the Family Conservancy. It depends in part on how tuned in people are, Neth said, and “our goal is to get people very tuned in and get people very loud about this.”
Future depends on Congress
The Head Start community across Kansas and Missouri – and the nation – are mounting a campaign to ensure the program’s survival.
National Head Start Association executive director Yasmina Vinci said last week that the federal budget proposal doesn’t reflect fiscal responsibility, but instead reflects a “disinvestment in our future.” Ending the program, Vinci said, would prove catastrophic.
Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat who represents much of the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro, and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, both vocally support continued funding for Head Start.
Davids said Trump’s proposed cuts would lead to shuttered classrooms, laid-off teachers and parents forced to choose between their jobs and child care.
“All so he can give more tax breaks to his billionaire friends,” Davids said in a statement. “I strongly oppose these cuts — and his efforts to dismantle the entire Department of Education — and have pushed to fully fund Head Start every year since coming to Congress.”
Trump has signed an executive order that seeks to all but close the Department of Education, though only Congress can eliminate agencies.
“This program gives Kansas kids a strong start and helps parents stay in the workforce, so I’m fighting to protect and expand it,” Davids said.
Cleaver called the idea that Trump would contemplate cuts as families are already strained by the cost of child care “nonsensical” and another example of the administration “working to gut programs that working class families depend on to fund more tax breaks for billionaires like President Trump and Elon Musk” – the billionaire put in charge of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, initiative.
Cleaver emphasized that Congress will decide whether to remove what he called a “lifeline for vulnerable families” already struggling.
“I for one will not support such a disastrously shortsighted decision, and my hope is that at least a handful of my Republican colleagues will join me in the fight to maintain current funding levels at the very least,” Cleaver said.
Rep. Mark Alford, a Republican whose district includes areas east and south of the Kansas City metro, made no commitments when asked whether he supports continued funding for Head Start.
Alford’s views carry additional weight because he sits on the House Appropriations Committee – the primary committee responsible for spending bills in the House. He is the only Missouri or Kansas representative on the committee.
In a statement, Alford said he looks forward to evaluating Trump’s budget after it’s submitted to Congress, “not based on selective leaks or rumors.”
“As a new member of the House Appropriations Committee, we will prioritize returning to regular order and bringing fiscal sanity to Washington while working to strengthen vital programs,” Alford said. “We will also ensure Missouri’s voice is heard as critical decisions are made about the future of our nation.”
The Rock at Stony Point sits just over half a mile inside Republican Rep. Derek Schmidt’s district. His office didn’t respond to questions for this story.
Would Kansas or Missouri fund Head Start?
As Congress girds for a spending fight, some state officials are weighing what role, if any, they could play in providing support for Head Start if federal money disappears.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican who took office in January, didn’t rule out offering state support when questioned by reporters about Head Start this week, calling himself a “fan” of the program.
Kehoe said he had been in discussions with Missouri’s congressional delegation to help them understand the effects of federal cuts on Missouri. Asked directly whether talks have taken place about using state funds for the program, the governor said “you want to always be ready for something but you hope you don’t have to use the tools you have to use.”
Kehoe said he had spoken to state lawmakers about having enough state dollars available “in case some of these things shift to us.”
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, said losing millions in federal Head Start funding would be “extraordinarily damaging” to the state.
“Head Start has been there for generations and has produced many high-quality results, and why you would want to undo something that’s so vital, I have no idea,” Kelly told reporters after a bill signing ceremony on Thursday.
She expressed optimism that potential deep cuts at the federal level won’t happen, but she made clear Kansas can’t afford to cover Head Start’s costs if funding is eliminated, warning there’s “no fat” in the budget.
“I’m hoping that it will be like a number of the other things where they have proposed that it be implemented and then they realized the really negative effects and they reversed it,” Kelly said.
At The Rock at Stony Point, Howell urged members of Congress to think about the community and the future.
The children in Head Start are future lawyers, doctors, commissioners, she said, urging political leaders to “help us to help them.”
When asked what happens to the center if Head Start goes away, Howell’s pastoral side emerged.
God would provide a “ram in the bush,” she said, alluding to the animal God sends Abraham to sacrifice instead of his son Isaac in the Bible’s Genesis.
“Now what it is, I can’t tell you, but I believe there’s a ram in the bush somewhere,” Howell said. “But we need Head Start, we need it to stay.”
The Star’s Matthew Kelly and Kacen Bayless contributed reporting
This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
