FRANKLIN COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) — The state budget is over 120 days late as of Halloween and it has already impacted hundreds of students across the Commonwealth. But more students could be at risk of losing their access to education and the long term effects could be detrimental.

First Start Partnerships for Children & Families has already been forced to shut its doors in multiple locations. One of its Chambersburg schools is only opening about six of their 12 classrooms. Now, they are losing funding from another school.

First Start Partnerships has connections to multiple Franklin County Schools, including the Waynesboro School District. Waynesboro offers a few classrooms for First Start Partnerships to operate their preschool program out of, and they fund those classes. But because the state budget is late, they are no longer getting enough of their own funding to help the preschool program. As a result, the Waynesboro classrooms will shut down on Monday.

“They could no longer sustain our program,” said Community Hub Director for First Start Partnerships Carolyn Clouser. “They needed to focus on their own children in their own classrooms so they came to the difficult decision at their board meeting this week, but they could no longer do that and so they notified us.”

The shutdown will impact 85 families and 13 teachers.

“We have a lot of children that are not being served. That’s just here in Franklin County and those kinds of things are happening all across the state,” said Clouser.

Early education for children is vital and research shows that lack of education can lead to a drastic decrease in quality of life.

“90% of your brain is developed by age three,” Clouser said. “So when we can’t get children into services by the time they’re in kindergarten, the statistics show that they’re more [likely] to end up in jail [and] be unemployed.”

Clouser and other administrators are urging lawmakers to put their differences aside and come together to pass a budget and ensure that Pennsylvania’s youth be educated.

“Their inability to come together is truly creating lifelong adversity for families and their communities. The families that they were supposed to be serving and particularly their youngest residents of the areas that they serve,” Clouser said.