Watch your language: Trump admin questioned Vermont Head Start

Read the full article at vtdigger.org. Below is an excerpt.

After Sandra Graves, the director of Champlain Valley Head Start in Burlington, submitted her annual application for federal funding, federal officials sent the request back to her with several issues flagged. Among other similar critiques, the phrase “cultural and linguistic responsiveness” had triggered a hold on her request while she amended her language.

“Though it does not explicitly state the terms diversity, equity, or inclusion, the term ‘cultural and linguistic responsiveness’ can be seen as a similar word to DEI,” read a communication to Graves from the federal Office of Head Start, which lies within the Health and Human Services Department, headed by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“I knew it might be coming,” Graves said of the challenge to her application. “It’s kind of hard to know what words or phrases might trigger a question.”

But this particular query was surprising, Graves said, given that the language in question was drawn verbatim from federal Head Start performance standards, and further grounded in the program’s statutory mandates.

Head Start is a federal program that provides child care, meals and other services to young children, parents and pregnant women who have an income below the federal poverty line. In Vermont, roughly 1,250 kids are enrolled in the program, of which advocates report roughly one-fifth are experiencing homelessness.

The complications with Graves’ application occurred in what was already a challenging time for many Head Start providers, with the government shutdown this fall causing funding delays across the program. Though Graves’ grant was nearly a month late, her organization was able to avoid layoffs or service freezes, with the Vermont Department for Children and Families offering no-interest loan options to Head Start providers as a backstop.

As programs in Vermont continue to apply for their annual federal funding allocations this year, they have encountered significant changes to how federal agencies are handling such requests. While national Head Start leadership remains confident in the program’s stability, Vermont providers are expressing concern about how such modifications will affect them.

This focus on ensuring that federal funds do not support DEI-related programming has become par for the course, according to Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the nonprofit National Head Start Association.

The messaging around DEI under President Donald Trump’s administration, Sheridan said, has been a “180 degree difference” from the policies set out by President Joe Biden’s administration.