Teacher Shay Sawicki shows different animal decals to her pre-K class the morning of Friday, May 16. A brand new farm-themed bulletin board was among the exciting educational toys that students were free to play with that morning at Salt Bay Area Head Start, where students ages 0-5 from across Lincoln County receive early childhood education and support. (Molly Rains photo)
Providers of education, nutrition, and family support programs for Lincoln County’s youngest residents are pressing on in spite of wavering funding.
“I have every expectation that this will work out. I just don’t see how the workforce can work if Head Start isn’t here, let alone what it would do to the families and the kids,” said Andrew Slater, Midcoast Maine Community Action director of child and family services.
Midcoast Maine Community Action oversees federal Head Start and Early Head Start programs across Lincoln, Sagadahoc, and northern Cumberland counties, organizing preschool services for children ages 0-5 from qualifying low-income families. The programs support children’s nutrition, physical and cognitive health, and social development through day programs, family counseling, and home visits, according to the U.S. Administration for Children and Families.
In 16 Head Start and Early Head Start classrooms across its coverage area, Midcoast Maine Community Action is serving 175 qualifying low-income children this year, with about 90 in Lincoln County, Slater said. However, he noted, the actual number of children the organization reaches is higher, as some classrooms now contain both Head Start-eligible and ineligible children through collaborations between public school districts and Midcoast Maine Community Action.
In all Head Start and Early Head Start classrooms, children are fed breakfast and lunch daily. At Salt Bay Head Start in Newcastle the morning of Friday, May 16, cereal and applesauce were on the menu. Then, a range of playful activities allowed the students to explore skills ranging from creativity and sharing (at a bench lined with faux flowers, the children built and exchanged bouquets) to entomology (at a simple microscope, others eagerly awaited their turn to view a set of insect slides).
Daily activities that promote learning and build children’s cognitive abilities while introducing them to skills like counting and reading are an essential part of Head Start, said Heather Frandsen, Lincoln County regional supervisor with Midcoast Maine Community Action..
“The amount that we do to bring the education even to Early Head Start, it’s amazing, and it’s awesome to watch the kids grow,” she said.
Administering Head Start is a complex task, but another factor was added this winter as federal budget cuts resulted in uncertainty around the program’s funding. Midcoast Maine Community Action gets 80% of its funding from the federal government, Slater said.
On April 1, five of the then-10 Head Start regional offices in the U.S. were immediately shuttered, their staff laid off, following federal cuts. This included the Boston office, which until that day was the regional administrative hub for Head Start programs in the northeast, Slater said.
The closure of the office had an immediate and significant effect on Slater’s work with local Head Start programs. Until the closure, Midcoast Maine Community Action had reported to the Boston office and relied on its staff for information, support, and grant administration. After, Slater said, he was left without guidance on matters ranging from how to manage the evolving student population under his oversight to expanding local programs’ reach.
With no regional office, Slater said, he could not place requests for the funding that would allow him to reach more local children.
“I would like to say, ‘it’s looking like I can serve more kids and more communities, but I need more money to pay the teachers,’ but I can’t do that right now,” Slater said.
The shuttering of the Boston office also paused an effort to increase accessibility of Head Start programs for local families through transportation.
“Up in Lincoln County, a big issue for us … is transportation. Families can’t always pay for gas to drop their kids,” Slater said.
In response, Midcoast Maine Community Action recently started a shuttle program that runs from Waldoboro to Newcastle daily and was a hit with parents, he said. While Slater would like to expand the program and add a second vehicle to reach even more families, with no administrator to report to, he cannot begin that process.
Slater reached out to nationwide Head Start administrators with his questions throughout the month of April, but never heard back, he said. On May 2, Midcoast Maine Community Action and other northeastern Head Start offices from Pennsylvania northward were reassigned to a new regional office, Slater said. But despite that announcement, there is still no designated specialist for Slater to correspond with, meaning he did not yet have answers to his questions or the freedom to move forward with some of his plans as of May 20.
The future of Head Start funding in the federal and state budgets is also unclear. An initial proposal from the presidential administration for the federal fiscal year 2026 budget included the complete elimination of Head Start. While the program is back in a more recent proposed budget, the amount it is slated to receive remains unclear.
“Any cut, financially, in what we get is going to translate into a loss of services for kids and families,” Slater said.
Slater views Head Start as an essential investment, citing benefits to children and families and society as a whole.
“The more kids Head Start serves, they have a much greater graduation rate than similar kids who haven’t gone through Head Start. They need fewer services as time goes on, and their disciplinary problems go down,” he said.
Data collected since Head Start was initiated in 1965 indicate that children enrolled in the program grow up to earn more than their peers who were not enrolled, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“They can come out and be contributing members of society,” Slater said. “I think that benefits everybody.”
At the community level, Slater hopes collaborative classrooms will help local school districts meet the state-wide mandate to bring 3- and 4-year-olds with special educational needs into the care of public schools. He believes the rise in collaborative classrooms in recent years has been driven, in part, by superintendents’ efforts to find creative ways to meet this mandate.
“I think it’s a great way for Head Start to support the community,” he said.
The students enrolled in Head Start classrooms aren’t the only ones who Midcoast Maine Community Action works with, he added.
“Head Start is primarily about kids. But it’s not only about kids. We do a lot of work with families,” Slater said.
Head Start professionals called Family Advocates also work with parents, providing counseling on matters from creating a resume to finding substance avoidance support, he said.
“It really creates a real growing experience for everyone,” Frandsen said.
Despite the stormy skies, on the ground at Midcoast Maine Community Action’s offices and classrooms, the team is pressing on. Slater, a self-described “eternal optimist,” said he would continue to operate as if funding would come through in next year’s budget, noting that Head Start generally receives bipartisan support.
“We are moving ahead because we have to move ahead,” he said.
