Some Head Starts to close due to shutdown funding lapse: What we know

The Brief

The federal government will stop sending payments to 140 Head Start programs across the U.S. Saturday.

Some of them will have to close their doors.

When Head Start programs close, children are left without care, teachers aren’t getting paid, and parents may have to miss work or school.

Head Start programs serving 65,000 children will stop receiving federal funding on Nov. 1 because of the government shutdown , leaving some of them in danger of closing immediately.

Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association, said 140 Head Start programs across 41 states and Puerto Rico will lose funding starting Saturday. Head Start provides education, child care , meals, health screenings and more for the nation’s neediest preschoolers.

The backstory:

With n