Late last month, a leaked draft of President Trump's 2026 budget proposal expressly eliminated funding for Head Start, which provides early education and other services to roughly 5,000 children ages zero to five across the state of Nebraska. 

An official draft of that proposal released on May 2 did not explicitly eliminate federal Head Start funding, but it did not provide for it either – and there's no guarantee that Congress will approve funding for this program, or related grants, though it has consistently done so in the past. 

For Head Start employees in Southeast Nebraska – and beyond – all that has conspired to create an uncertain last few weeks with a similarly unclear future still ahead. 

“[Funding cuts] are not just going to affect the children and families who are enrolled in our programs, it’s also going to affect our communities,” said Shari Weber, CEO of Blue Valley Community Action. “Families enrolled in the program will have to make some tough decisions – if we’re no longer available, they are either going to have to find other childcare that they’d have to pay for, and they’d have to make tough decisions about if they can continue working or if they need to stay home and care for their children.” 

Crete's Blue River Early Learning Academy is one of many across the state that provides a safe place for children from low-income families up to age five to learn while their parents are at work.  

“You can’t not walk in those classrooms and not have a smile on your face the entire time, knowing that we are growing our future leaders, we are creating that next generation and that foundation for those children is the most important thing we can foster, mold and help create,” said Kyanna Volkman, BVCA’s children services director. 

But if Congress does not approve funding for Head Start and its adjacent grants in the budget for next year, classrooms and playgrounds like the ones at BRELA would have to change drastically - if not disappear entirely. Just in Southeast Nebraska, that could mean jobs lost for nearly 100 Head Start employees, and loss of service for 400 children - and their families.  

“I think the fallout would be terrifying. It’s a cycle – once one falls out, the rest is going to go with it,” said Amber Heinrichs, a Head Start education officer. “We need quality childcare – and we’re already in a crisis. Nebraska is one of the states that has the most working families – there's very few households that can survive with one working parent. So economically, we need Head Start to stay.” 

To start this month, Nebraska's Head Start has received half of its expected funding for the upcoming fiscal year - but there's no guarantee the rest will come.  

“Uncertainty is absolutely our new favorite word, but I’ve been proud of our team, because there could have been a day where everyone panics, they leave, they give up, but that has been the opposite reaction,” Volkman said. “I think it’s in the back of all of our minds that every day we could get a new update and there could be a change that we have to maneuver. But we will take on those changes as they come, face them with grace, and we will do the best that we can.” 

Similar to other partnership organizations across the state, BVCA serves nine counties in Southeast Nebraska. They sponsor Head Start programs in seven of those, as well as programs that help to address child healthcare, youth education readiness, adult career growth opportunities, food banks, and affordable housing. 

At a time where efficiency is a big federal government budgetary buzzword, Head Start is a program that helps address a bunch of needs. 

“60 years ago it was noticed that there were deficiencies, shortcomings, in things like health outcomes, social and emotional development, cognitive development, and things of that nature which are strongly correlated to poverty – that's why we have this program,” said Ben Schwartz, BVCA’s communications and development officer. “You’re talking about one program that works towards all of these goals, and it’s very effective at all of these things – definitionally, that is efficiency.” 

Schwartz underscored that while the wait for federal funding for the Head Start program itself is important, of similar urgency is the need for money in the form of federal grants called Community Service Block Grants – CSBG – a more flexible source of income that BVCA can leverage in a number of different ways.  

“There are less strings attached to CSBG funding than program-specific funding, so if a need arises in a certain area, like maintenance in our affordable housing offerings, CSBG money fills that gap,” he explained. “CSBG funding helps pay staff wages in our health and immunizations department, and in our family and community services center that allow us to have office hours in all nine of our counties.” 

This isn't the first time in its nearly six-decade history that Head Start has faced the threat of funding cuts. And that longevity has brought with it many success stories: employees with connections to the program in their pasts who know what Head Start children in the future stand to lose should funding be suspended.  

Head Start has impacted Jackie Cisneros’ life in three distinct ways. She was a Head Start kid herself, where the environment she enjoyed as a child helped motivate her to want to become a teacher. Now, she’s back in the Head Start classroom as a lead teacher for mixed-age classes, with her own daughter now enrolled in the program as well. 

“It’s just the teachers and the environment that I grew up in,” Cisneros said. “They were very loving, and I never saw them as just a teacher, they were a person I could go to for comfort. So that’s what I want to bring for the children here: I'm not just somebody that takes care of you, I love your presence, and I want you to trust me as your teacher – just a bonding relationship with the kids.” 

A former Head Start teacher herself, Heinrichs helped bring her own children through a Head Start program, and now in her role as education officer she helps to plan the curriculum the current kids follow to ensure they are ready to move on to other school systems.  

“Head Start is a tool for hope, that’s what I like to think of it as. It’s a resource developed for families that want to be better, do better, and grow, and that’s how I got connected to Head Start to begin with,” she said. “I was determined to break a cycle, make it to college and make it through, and I needed Head Start to be able to do that.” 

And then there’s Weber, who has been part of Blue Valley Community Action for decades, eventually ascending to the title of CEO of an organization that manages 35 programs that touch more than 8,000 people throughout this part of the country. 

“Head Start does work, it does make a difference – we have changed lives. And with our support, these families can become self-sufficient,” she said. “We need to fund these programs because the children are our future – they're the ones that are going to be taking care of us down the road, so we need to set them up for success.” 

There was a rally on Tuesday at the Nebraska State Capitol in support of Head Start, organized by a couple of state senators with educators as their guests – not the other way around. As Head Start prepares to celebrate its 60th birthday later this month, even during this period of uncertainty, that push proves there's support for the organization and the work it does coming from all levels of the population and all across the country, something that is giving the employees of Head Start here in Nebraska hope that there is a pathway for the program to exist for another 60 years – at least. 

“We are in challenging times, there’s no doubt about that. But with every challenge that has come out, we have had just as many people rise up, advocating for the importance of Head Start and our programs,” said Volkman. “I’m definitely a positive person at my core, so even during this challenging time I still feel like, when the day is done, we can take that as a win – that there are people who appreciate the work that we do, that have been changed by our services, and that are ready to stand up and advocate alongside us.”