WA early preschool program faces budget elimination

Every weekday morning, Matthew McInturff-Hill’s 2-year-old daughter, Natalie, attends a child care program in Goldendale, a small town in Klickitat County north of the Columbia River Gorge.

McInturff-Hill, 23, works as a process server while balancing other odd jobs. He doesn’t pay for the care because Natalie is enrolled in the state’s free preschool program for children younger than 3.

State legislators have proposed eliminating funding for Early ECEAP, part of the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, which primarily serves low-income families like McInturff-Hill’s with intensive support and education. 

He worries about what he would do if that happens.

“There’s nothing else affordable in this town,” he said. “There’s only private day cares, and I can’t afford those.” 

Staring down a funding shortfall, state legislators have also proposed reductions and delays to other early learning programs. 

The cuts loom as the Trump administration chips away at the parts of the early learning system the federal government oversees. The administration is weighing eliminating funding for Head Start, the long-standing federal public preschool program that ECEAP is modeled on. It has cut federal workers overseeing Head Start and other federal child care programs.

Losing Head Start could stretch Washington’s already-stressed early learning system by lowering the supply of available child care. Last week, a Head Start provider in Central Washington closed more than a dozen classrooms for several days, saying it didn’t have enough federal funding to pay its bills. The program was notified Friday that the money would come through.

McInturff-Hill worries that cutting Early ECEAP would be stressful for his daughter, a social butterfly who loves Bluey and anything colorful, by taking her away from her friends and teachers. She’s been in the program since she was an infant.

He says she’s learning shapes and colors and how to express herself and interact with other kids.

“She’s learned great vocabulary and manners and a steady routine,” he said.

Not only that, McInturff-Hill says, but he gets support as a single parent, getting help with his questions about naps and potty training. He and Natalie’s mother share joint custody.

Washington has offered its free preschool program, the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, since the mid-1980s. 

But Early ECEAP, for children under 3, began as a pilot program in 2019, supported by federal grant funding. Eventually, the state took over the costs. With fewer than 200 slots, it’s a much smaller program than ECEAP, which has about 16,400.

Early ECEAP not only helps families with parenting but also with accessing health services, navigating support plans for children with developmental delays or disabilities and developing and meeting family goals like overcoming barriers to employment. Children also get smaller class sizes than is required in typical licensed child care, teachers with more credentials and a research-based curriculum. 

Providers must also score at least a 4 out of 5 in the state’s Early Achievers system, which evaluates child care provider quality.

Even children who are not part of the program can benefit from the higher standards it sets, since providers often draw on multiple funding sources, said Joel Ryan, executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP. The smaller class sizes and teacher qualification requirements can have a positive ripple effect.

“There are cascading impacts on everybody else that’s in that child care program,” Ryan said. 

Early ECEAP is modeled on Early Head Start, the federal preschool program for children under 3. 

David Mandell, senior policy adviser at Zero to Three, a national organization advocating for babies and toddlers, says Early Head Start and similar programs have “key ingredients,” including appropriate caregiver-to-child ratios, caregivers who understand how babies develop and family support and involvement.

The creation of Early Head Start in the 1990s was an “important first step in recognizing how crucial this age period was,” he said.

But majority Democrats in the state House and Senate have proposed putting no money toward Early ECEAP in the upcoming budget.

Ryan says the relatively small Early ECEAP program — with 178 slots and a price tag of about $4.6 million per year — is an “easy target” for lawmakers. The program serves families in nine of Washington’s 39 counties.

While some lawmakers support the intensive services that Early ECEAP provides, others feel the program is expensive, or are more interested in expanding preschool programs for older children, Ryan said.

It’s generally hard to find care for the youngest children in Washington. A 2022 brief by the Department of Children, Youth and Families stated that, at most, 18% of the need for care for infants and toddlers had been met by the state’s licensed caregivers (not all providers must be licensed).

When DYCF sought a federal grant in 2018 to start planning the Early ECEAP program, the agency described a “serious shortage” of care and early learning options for babies and toddlers. At that time, home visiting programs and Early Head Start reached 7% of eligible infants and toddlers in the state.

Sen. Claire Wilson, D-Auburn, said at a March 27 discussion hosted by The Seattle Times the assumption was that Early ECEAP families would be eligible for two other programs: Working Connections, a state program that subsidizes child care for working parents and caregivers, and Early Support for Infants and Toddlers, known as ESIT, which provides early intervention services to children under 3 with developmental delays or disabilities.

“We need to work together to make sure families have those connected services, even though the comprehensive program may be gone,” she said.

However, not all families would qualify for Working Connections, which requires caregivers to work or attend school. Ryan’s organization estimates about 30-40% of Early ECEAP families wouldn’t qualify. For example, if a grandparent cares for a young child but is no longer working or cannot work, they likely would not qualify.

While Early ECEAP is free, some families must pay a copay for Working Connections, depending on their income.

Some families qualify for Early ECEAP even though they make more money than the income limit because their child has a disability or developmental delays. If the same family exceeds the income limits for Working Connections, they wouldn’t qualify for that program. 

Babies and toddlers with disabilities or developmental delays could qualify for services through ESIT, but it’s hard to compare the two programs, Ryan said. ESIT provides specific therapies and support for children with disabilities. But it doesn’t offer the same array of services that Early ECEAP does, he said.

Connie Riddell’s granddaughter, Briella, 5, went through an Early ECEAP program in Yakima and is now enrolled in its equivalent for 3-to-5-year-olds.

Briella is the daughter of Riddell’s son. Riddell and her husband adopted Briella shortly before she turned 2.

Riddell says they tried two other day care programs before enrolling in Early ECEAP.

“There was always communication, and you just felt like family,” Riddell said of Early ECEAP.

Riddell says that Briella struggled with transitions — like leaving a playground or going out to run errands — and separation anxiety. The word “no” could trigger a meltdown. Sometimes, she would bang her head on the floor. 

Through early ECEAP, Riddell said she saw improvement in Briella’s behavior. The program also taught Riddell how to respond when Briella struggled.

“It has changed so much, and she needed this early,” Riddell said. “I can’t even imagine them getting rid of early childhood stuff.”

Riddell says Briella is a smart, loving and energetic child — and is ready for kindergarten because of the ECEAP programs she attended and the family support they provided.

“She’s flourishing,” Riddell says.

An earlier version of this story misstated the year a DCYF brief was published.