Nine Michigan Head Start programs missed expected federal payments Saturday. One run by the Gogebic-Ontonagon Community Action Agency immediately closed. (Annie Barker for Bridge Michigan)

(This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. Visit the newsroom online: bridgemi.com.)

After the federal government failed to renew a $1.5 million federal grant by Saturday, officials at the Gogebic-Ontonagon Community Action Agency say they had little choice: They closed a free preschool program that has served two counties in the Upper Peninsula since 1965.

The program was among nine Head Starts in Michigan that missed expected weekend payments because of the ongoing federal government shutdown. Unlike others, the U.P. program could not secure alternative resources in time to continue operations.

That means 85 students — along with 30 other families with children in Early Head Start — won’t be getting the education, meals and other services they rely on until funding is restored. And employees are currently out of work, program director Renee Pertile told Bridge Michigan.

“We’re kind of one big family, and now it seems like a piece is missing,” she said. “It’s awfully quiet here today.”

Funded primarily by the federal government to serve low-income preschoolers and their families, Head Start programs in Michigan and around the country are among the latest to feel direct impacts from the government shutdown that’s dragged on for more than a month.

Coupled with the recent pause in federal food assistance impacting 1.4 million Michigan residents, advocates warn the ongoing turmoil surrounding federal funding is putting vulnerable kids at risk.

While local schools and community groups can in some cases step in to help keep Head Start programs going, those resources are “not going to be universal, and it’s not going to be a one-to-one replacement,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan.

“The longer this goes on, the more damage it’s going to do,” McCann continued. “This is a crisis of choice by (politicians), and it’s kids that are paying the price for it.”

As of Tuesday, the Gogebic-Ontonagon program was the only confirmed closure in Michigan since Saturday, according to the National Head Start Association, which has so far reported 25 closures nationwide.

Education advocates warned other programs around the state that have missed grant payments are at imminent risk of running out of money, too.

Statewide, Michigan has 48 Head Start and Early Head Start programs that serve nearly 30,000 children, bringing in $423 million in federal funds annually, said Robin J. Bozek, executive director of the Michigan Head Start Association.

Nine of those programs serving 2,944 children, many of them in the Upper Peninsula and northern lower Michigan, saw their funding grants expire Saturday, Bozek said.

Though some of those programs have been able to piece together enough funds from local schools or community groups to temporarily keep them afloat, the lack of new federal funding means money is tight and the future is uncertain, Bozek said.

“Anytime there’s a pause or a stop … it totally disrupts the system for this type of grant,” she said.

For the Gogebic-Ontonagon Community Action Agency, there was no money to fall back on. When the grant didn’t come through, the Head Start program had to wind down.

“We started looking at this in mid-October, thinking, we’d better prepare just in case this was going to happen,” Pertile said. “As it got closer to the deadline, we knew that it was highly unlikely we would get our grant.”

In the short term, program employees are able to collect unemployment, and a local daycare offered to open up temporary slots to help care for kids who’d previously been attending the Head Start program, Pertile said.

The agency is also looking at the possibility of setting up a mobile food drive for local families in need, and Pertile is planning to provide weekly updates to staff and parents as they learn more.

Even if the shutdown ends tomorrow, it will still take some time to get operations back up and running, she added, noting that many Head Start participants in their rural community don’t have other options readily available for early learning programs, health checks and meals.

“The longer this goes on, the more concerned we get,” Pertile said. “Because we’re such a rural program, there are limited resources…they might be able to do it for a couple weeks, but then they might have to look for something more permanent.”

Looking ahead to next month, grants for another four Michigan Head Start programs will come up for renewal Dec. 1, Bozek said, meaning the financial pressures felt by Gogebic-Ontonagon and eight other programs could soon extend to others across Michigan.

Losing Head Start options would be “a huge hardship” to families whose parents need a safe place for their young children while at work, Bozek said.

But beyond that, she said, it would put early educators out of work and cut needy families off from a connector for additional resources, including food assistance, health care, and even warm coats for kids as the cold weather creeps in.

“When a Head Start program closes, it impacts the entire community,” Bozek said.