are in this position to come to us.
>> All right. Thank you so much.
shutdown became the longest in U.S. history, the
impacts piled up across Wisconsin early learning
Head Start programs had to close down, shuttering
child care programing for hundreds of children. One
of them covers five counties and is run by the
Southwestern Wisconsin Community Action Program.
It closed nine Head Start classrooms at the start of
this month. We're joined now by the director of Head
Start programs there, Tawny Hardyman. And thanks very
much for being here. >> Thank you.
>> So I see that you are joining us from one of your
empty classrooms. How hard is this for you to see
happen? >> Very difficult. Even
though this is out of our control, we we feel really
responsible for our families and the children
and the impacts that we make within their lives.
And so it's really hard to have told the families this
after you've encouraged them to, you know, come to
your center, enroll in your program to see the empty
classroom is hard. These are three and four year old
children here at this center. They have fun every
day. We have great teachers here and we just worry
about, you know, what are they doing? We miss them.
>> How disruptive is this in the lives of the
families whose children are there?
>> It's extremely as three and four year old
children, it takes a little while to transition into a
classroom and to get accustomed to things. And
then suddenly this routine that they've been in every
week ends and they're kind of wondering what's going
on. Additionally, with families, they rely on
these classrooms for childcare. While some of
the families go to work or school, and they have when
they came to our program in September, they would have
let go of a different enrollment slot,
potentially at another childcare provider. This
area is also a childcare desert in many of our
communities. So they were having struggles trying to
find other arrangements for their children. If they
don't have family or friends that are able to
help them. Another thing that impacts the families
is that these children receive breakfast, lunch
and snack at our centers every day. Many families
were really wondering about their food security.
Additionally. >> How are they dealing
with that? Do you know? >> They were very upset.
Very worried. Scrambling, you know, wondering what
were they going to do, asking our staff if they
would be available to watch their children while they
went to work, you know, so, yeah, they, they just kind
of feel like the rug was yanked out from underneath
them. They had a routine going. They had made
arrangements, like I said, to work or go to school.
And then in the middle, you know, right at the end of
October, we had to let them know that our funding has
not been approved for the next 12 month grant cycle.
>> How valuable are the benefits of Head Start
programing for these children?
biggest things that kids learn are some social
skills, like how do I how do I learn to listen to
instructions? How do I learn to follow the
routines of school? How do I make friends? You know,
those things are so much even more important than
the ABCs. And one two threes is just learning how
to listen. When? When do I sit still? When do I get up
to go? And this might be their first experience away
from home, so it gets them prepared for what that
environment would be like at the school. They are
adjusted. They're used to coming in. Now we're
worried if the shutdown happens, you know, for a
long period of time, how difficult will it be for
them to transition back into this setting.
>> Even if or when federal funding resumes? Will you
be able to kind of seamlessly bring your
programing back up to speed? >> It won't be as quick as
what a person might think. So when the federal
government shut down our regional offices, national
offices that support programs, those staff were
furloughed on October 1st. So we have grant
applications. As I said, our grant cycle runs from
November 1st to October 31st, and that grant
application is in there in the system waiting to be
awarded. So once the government opens back up,
they will have to recall those federal, well, those
regional and national workers for Head Start.
They'll have to review our application again. And then
we have to wait for the notice of award. So we've
our understanding is that could take about 1 to 2
weeks. And then once we receive the notice of award
it hopefully it will be for the full amount that we
have, you know, requested. Then we would put together
a plan, recall staff, give them a little bit of time
in the classroom to get such as getting food,
groceries for breakfast, lunch and snack and then
contact families. So it's going to take us at least
probably three weeks would government reopens.
>> Tawny Hardyman, thanks very much for explaining to