As the 2025 government shutdown enters its second week, some early childhood education providers are bracing for a situation similar to the pandemic, when they saw quarantined and newly unemployed parents pull their children out of day care.
While Kiera Fernandez said that has yet to be the case at Blandi’s Child Learning Center on Kennedy Street in Northwest, she told The Informer that she and her colleagues foresee a future where they may have to cut employees’ hours and jeopardize the quality of their services.
“If you send people home early, the children are not going home early,” Fernandez told The Informer. “They’re still here for the whole day, so it affects the day-to-day operation in terms of staff-to-child ratio, and then also it affects the staff finances. The goal is to not fire anyone, that’s for sure. These are just plans in conversation.”
Blandi’s Early Child Learning Center, a second-generation family-owned business, strives to provide a safe, nurturing and culturally affirming environment for youth making the transition from home to school. Indoor and outdoor programming focuses on the development of physical, socioemotional and intellectual growth, while staff members set out to support parents representing a spectrum of income levels.
Fernandez, who started working at Blandi’s as a teenager, wears many hats, including that of an instructor, custodian and cafeteria staff member. She said her experience has also exposed her to the science of early childhood development. That’s why, though she empathizes with families pressured to stop their children’s pre-school instruction, she warned about what she called the long-term drawbacks of that decision.
“For younger children, the most important thing is routine,” Fernandez told The Informer, “and if parents are…pulling them out, it disrupts their learning because the routine is there. Their interaction with their peers is interrupted as well. That’s the most important thing for their age group at this time.”
Despite those who may believe otherwise, Fernandez said spending lengths of unstructured time under the same roof with siblings may not suffice.
“They need social interaction with their peers,” Fernandez said. “It’s not the same as playing with their big sister or big brother.”
Local Officials and Organizers Respond to Effects of Federal Government Shutdown
Since the start of the government shutdown on Oct. 1, Republicans and Democrats haven’t gotten any closer to resolving an impasse centered on the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits.
Earlier this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) canceled plans for the lower chamber to return, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) reportedly acknowledged that a solution would likely come from a meeting between congressional leaders and President Donald J. Trump.
In recent days, federal government agencies have adjusted — or ceased — operations in response to the shutdown. For instance, the National Park Service furloughed more than half of its staff. Though more than 400 national parks remain open, there’s uncertainty about the maintenance of the land during the shutdown period.
As concerns about air traffic safety linger, the Federal Aviation Agency has also furloughed a quarter of its staff, while essential workers like air traffic controllers and TSA bag screeners are working without pay. In the District, the Smithsonian Institute announced that it would stay open through Oct. 11.
Meanwhile, other federally funded institutions — D.C. Superior Court, for example — have ceased certain processes, including the performance of marriage ceremonies and dissemination of marriage licenses.
On Tuesday, the D.C. Council approved emergency legislation that, in the midst of a federal government shutdown, places that responsibility in the hands of DC Health.
Earlier in the week, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) confirmed that the D.C. government would stay open throughout the duration of the shutdown. He, however, pointed out that some people, including District employees whose positions were funded by the federal government, would be affected by events currently unfolding on the hill.
“Whether they continue to get paid, as of a week ago when I talked to the chief financial officer, it wasn’t clear,” Mendelson told reporters on Monday. “It’s a very small number, but then, of course, there are going to be District residents who are federal government workers who are affected. So that will affect us, and contractors who are not getting paid, and so that will affect us.”
The Office of the Chief Financial Officer told The Informer that nearly 3,400 federally funded D.C. government employees affected by the shutdown will have their positions funded with local funds that agency heads expect to be reimbursed with once the federal government reopens.
Many District residents count the shutdown among the latest of slights committed by the federal government since Trump’s return to the Oval Office. The cessation of federally funded services comes just weeks after the end of a federal surge that, according to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and other local officials, soured police-community relations.
Local organizer LaDon Love said that she and her comrades who organize out of Emory Fellowship on Georgia Avenue in Northwest are still seeing the remnants of Trump’s summertime executive order that mandated coordination between the Metropolitan Police Department and federal law enforcement agencies.
“Some people are afraid to come out because of the overpolicing that’s happening in D.C.,” said Love, executive director of SPACEs in Action, a local membership-based advocacy organization focused on health care, childcare and economic dignity. “One of the things that we’ve been talking about with the church is coordinating with those families and trying to figure out how to do some food and supply drop-offs.”
Since the shutdown, Love has heard, not only from furloughed residents who are buckling under tight budgets, but community institutions — such as day cares and small businesses— that are anxious about what their customer base’s loss of income means for them.
“These are businesses that…have relied on the local people to come in,” Love told The Informer. “Mom-and-pop shops are likely going to have to close their doors, which means that the communities will have less resources.”
Love’s work at the helm of SPACEs in Action takes her through Wards 1, 4,5, 7 and 8, which have the highest concentration of marginalized Black and brown D.C. residents. During the most recent local budget deliberation cycle, Love and other members of SPACEs in Action organized around the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund and the child tax credit.
Though both have been approved, the D.C. Council didn’t fund the child tax credit for this year, nor did it secure future funding for the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund.
Amid concerns about Medicaid reductions compelled by congressional machinations, Love also continues to educate families about how they can get the most of their health care. Federally-induced economic and political pressure notwithstanding, Love contends that the onus still falls on Bowser and the D.C. Council to aggressively rebuff the White House and congressional Republicans.
“On the one hand the D.C. government is being threatened by so many different bills that are being proposed by Congress to strip away Home Rule,” Love told The Informer. “At the same time, if you’re being attacked and you’re pushed into a corner, do you just keep getting beat down or do you want to stand up and stand for something?”
Also of concern to Love is, as she described it, elected officials’ penchant for bolstering corporations, and not people, during economically strenuous times.
“They should stand up and stand for…D.C. and the people,” she said about District leaders. “The council and the mayor should make sure they’re investing in [the] community and not in big business.”
Unity Day, A Youth’s Call to Action
On Saturday, messages of hope and solidarity reverberated throughout a portion of North Capitol Street and Riggs Road in Northeast as congregants and community members gathered at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ.
They spent the better part of the afternoon at an annual Unity Day hosted in collaboration with New Hope Baptist United Church of Christ. For hours, a bevy of speakers—including this reporter— gave the clarion call to support those in the U.S. and around the world who’ve been affected by: diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) funding cuts, federal law enforcement intrusion and government furloughs, changes to the local budget, and most recently the shutdown.
“With the rise of tensions in D.C. and…the political state of the world, Black and brown youth are being targeted more often,” D.C. high school student Nahema Konate told The Informer. “They have been detained or denied the needs that they should receive. It’s important that they get those resources…to live peacefully and not be in fear of anything because they’re only children.”
Nahema, a member of D.C. Girls Coalition and one of Unity Day’s youngest speakers, took to the mic on Saturday in demand of gender justice, social and emotional support, economic stability, and basic needs. She pledged to continue issuing that call, especially since, as she told The Informer, the federal government shutdown further inhibits Black and brown youth’s ability to secure vital resources.
“We didn’t have funding for things before and the government not being funded now will make it even harder,” said Nahema, a student at Jackson-Reed High School in Northwest. “Other things will take precedence over what we’re trying to do to help the youth. It definitely will be a bit of a setback, but hopefully we’ll get on the right track.”