Thousands of New Jersey kids will lose access to preschool under a funding cut being proposed by the White House which is looking to eliminate money for Head Start a fedally funded program that provides early childhood education and support services for low-income families researchers say Head Start has been critical in growing the state's preschool enrollment and terminating it would dismantle the entire early education system here now parents and Head Start providers are stepping in to fight the cuts filing a federal lawsuit i spoke with our education and child welfare reporter Hannah Gross about the details hannah um a lot to unpack here let me ask you first about the effect that this would have particularly on kids of uh lowincome families and just sort of the long-term impacts on you know equity in education for them head Start serves some of the most disadvantaged students in the state and nationwide so if that funding gets cut it means a lot of children and families wouldn't have access to early education it means parents wouldn't have child care and researchers at Ruckers also said that it would impact the entire state of preschool because all of the funding and services are very intertwined m so what's the uptake about how many kids are enrolled in Head Start programs in New Jersey and how many are taking advantage of the state funded prek programs so there are about 10,000 three and four year olds in the Head Start preschool programs there's about 2,000 more children and families who are being served through other programs like Early Head Start which are from zero to three and that's a decent percentage of the overall preschool population which is around 62,000 from last school year so uh it's interesting right because in past years there were um arguments made you know preschool is babysitting but we know from research that it's really so much more um but Head Start in particular helps a lot of kids where English is a second language immigrant children with other wraparound services what did you hear from advocates to that end they've said Head Start is extremely successful it helps students graduate high school and even college at a higher rate they show up to kindergarten more ready to learn more ready for schooling it also helps parents put their kids in child care so they can work or go to school and helps the whole family not just the kid that's in the program there's been some talk um that this is essentially dismantling uh the preschool system the New York I believe regional office of Head Start um was shut down um what does that mean for support here in New Jersey and are Head Start providers taking any action on their own behalf the federal government closed five of the 10 regional uh Head Start offices including the one in New York which oversees New York New Jersey Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and the people who used to work in that office had very strong knowledge of our region and knew what all of the local communities need now providers with any questions have to turn to the office of Head Start in Washington DC which means response times are slower and they don't know as much about what communities in New Jersey need in response to those office closures and some other steps the new administration has recently taken some Head Start associations in other states have sued um saying they're violating the law including the Head Start Act and the Separation of Powers what are parents saying have you been able to talk to any families who would be directly impacted by this two of the groups suing are parent organizations who are saying this is disastrous for their children there was one Head Start center in Washington that was forced to close for a few days which meant um hundreds of parents had to take their kids home that day they couldn't go to work they couldn't go to school and their kids weren't learning um I'm wondering about alternate plans or contingency plans if the money goes away i mean is there an argument to be made that uh there can be other resources for these kids if it's not Head Start so New Jersey receives about $200 million each year in Head Start funding from the federal government and researchers at Ruckers said that's a big sum of money that couldn't be easily replaced by the state so maybe the state would be able to help out a little bit but I don't think they would be able to conjure up that sum of money based on what I'm hearing so no contingency plan i mean the state department of education is in the loop they're talking to local Head Start providers about what's going on and trying to support them as best as they can but I don't think it's so clear-cut about what they would do if this funding does get taken away okay uh you can read all of Hannah Gross's reporting on our website njspotlightenews.org hannah thanks so much for coming in thank you so much for having me Briana.