<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/11/1605900977621.png" alt="Photo by Kylene Scott" />
 <figcaption>Photo by Kylene Scott</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Who’s watching the kids?</h2>By JENNIFER M. LATZKE <a href="https://www.hpj.com/ag_news/who-s-watching-the-kids/article_e3c68c54-2832-11eb-b0e2-3ffba77e61f7.html#utm_source=hpj.com&amp;utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Flists%2Fhpj-weekly%2F%3F-dc%3D1605895220&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=headline">High Plains Journal</a>Economic development directors and 
community leaders have raised the alarm for years about a checklist of 
infrastructure improvements that will drive business development in 
rural areas. Topics such as reliable high-speed internet access; 
affordable and quality housing; healthy public school systems and 
available health care are the keys to thriving communities. These, they 
say, will attract job hunters looking for a slice of small-town life to 
raise families and grow towns. But there’s one item on the checklist 
that’s been overlooked for far too long.Who’s watching the kids while their parents are at their rural jobs?<h2>Availability</h2>It’s
 a simple question, but for Simone Elder, answering it causes her to 
pause. Finding regular child care for her infant daughter, Juliette, in 
Leoti, Kansas, in rural Wichita County, has been a challenge. With just 
one state licensed provider in the county, who doesn’t take infants, 
Simone and her husband, Levi, have had to rely on a network of family 
and friends to help care for their daughter while both work in town.“We
 wanted kids so bad,” she said. “It took us five years to get our 
daughter. And when I found out I was pregnant I started praying that I 
could find someone to watch her when I went back to work. All nine 
months I searched. And she’s 3 months old and we’re still searching.”In
 2017, Kansas parents like the Elders welcomed 36,464 new babies into 
their families, according to the Kansas Department for Children and 
Families and Child Care Aware of Kansas, the administrator of the 
statewide Child Care Resource and Referral network in the state. The 
agencies release supply and demand data annually for child care in the 
state.They survey four general
 types of child care providers. There are individual and group home 
providers, where a maximum of 10 to 12 children under 16 years of age 
are taken care of in a provider’s private home. Then there are child 
care centers, which are roughly defined as a separate facility where 
care and educational activities are provided for 13 or more children. 
And finally, there are preschools, Kansas Head Start and Early Head 
Start programs, which provide care and learning experiences for toddlers
 up to kindergarten-age children and service low-income children and 
their families.Their 2019 report showed that there are 
18 counties in Kansas that do not have openings for infants and toddlers
 in licensed facilities, and Wichita County is on that list. The same 
report stated that statewide communities lost 501 home child care 
providers since 2016. And while child care centers are increasing in 
number, there are still 38% of Kansas counties that do not have child 
care centers in their community. In those communities the need is filled
 by home providers, many of whom are nearing retirement age, according 
to many experts in the field.“In
 77% of Kansas counties, there are more than 10 children, under 3 years 
of age, that potentially need care for each reported child care 
opening,” according to Child Care Aware of Kansas. In six counties in 
the state, for every one child care opening, there are 40 on a waiting 
list. Families like the Elders wait for those precious openings.Marci
 Penner, executive director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, is on the 
Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s Child Care Licensing 
Systems Improvement Team. Penner said stories like the Elders’ are not 
unfamiliar.“In one place, 
around Marshall County, one family takes two kids to two different 
places because there aren’t enough openings at one provider,” she said. 
“We’ve heard of a 3-year-old riding on a bus to go to a preschool 15 
miles away.” But the issue is larger than availability.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/11/1605901075309.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>QualityTaking
 care of children is more than just being a babysitter. High-quality 
early childhood programs help children at the most productive stage of 
their development. Children make more than a million neural connections 
each second from birth to age 3.“With
 over 90% of a child’s brain architecture developed by age 5, there is 
no time to lose; our efforts to prepare young Kansans for success hinge 
on this critical early period of life,” according to the Kansas Early 
Childhood Systems Building Needs Assessment that was released January 
2020.Research has shown that 
high-quality early childhood programs and experiences directly lead to 
better educational outcomes, more high school graduates, higher lifetime
 salaries and levels of employment and overall a return on investment to
 their communities.Many 
parents want to place children in programs and facilities that offer 
quality early learning, but with limited licensed providers in 
communities, you take what you can get.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/11/1605901120286.png" alt="Photo by Kylene Scott" />
 <figcaption>Photo by Kylene Scott</figcaption>
 </figure>One mother in rural southwest Kansas 
preferred to speak off the record because she was afraid she’d lose her 
child’s placement in a provider. With no openings at the one licensed 
provider in her small town, she was forced to use an unlicensed provider
 until a spot came open. When it did, she sent her kids for about two 
weeks before taking them out and sending them back to her unlicensed 
friend of the family. Unlicensed providers are an open secret in many 
rural areas that lack licensed openings.“There
 have been two in-home daycares I wouldn’t allow to watch my children,” 
this mother said. “Because they aren’t of the quality that I would 
expect and I wouldn’t trust the level of care. So, I bent the rules and 
found people that I did trust and did feel good about.” She said her 
friends in more urban locations would share photos or stories on social 
media about their toddlers’ activities at daycare, like sensory play, 
letter recognition, story time and more, and she would be frustrated 
because none of that was available to her children in her small town.“Our
 rural kids are missing out on a lot of early childhood development 
opportunities because of the lack of high-quality child care options,” 
she added. “I was desperate for any decent care. I was never able to be 
picky about what they did beyond basic care.” While her own family and 
economic situation allows her to fill in those development gaps with 
bedtime stories and weekend family outings, she said low-income 
families, single parents and those parents with less education aren’t 
able to do the same. It costs money to provide for a child’s future, and
 that only widens the opportunity gap, she added.But
 that quality education comes at a cost. Providers who want to go to 
school for early childhood education often have to repay student loans, 
but rural child care centers can’t afford high salaries if they’re going
 to keep the service affordable for families.&nbsp; The Bureau of Labor 
Statistics says the average wage for child care workers is $10.72 per 
hour, and nearly 15% of them live in households with an annual income 
below the federal poverty line. It’s no wonder that the industry sees 
staff turnover rates as high as 25% and that there are few if any new 
providers willing to step up and fill gaps left by retiring providers in
 their communities.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/11/1605901162969.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Affordability</h2>According to the Kansas Needs Assessment
 Report, the average annual cost of full-time care in a child care 
center in the state ranges from $9,430 for preschool-aged children to 
$10,955 for infants, or about 20% of the state median household income. 
That cost drops to about $6,749 for in-home providers or 13% of the 
state median household income.Single parents of infants and toddlers in Kansas can expect to pay 48.7% of their annual income in child-care costs.That
 doesn’t leave a lot leftover for saving for retirement, paying down 
student loan debt, buying a house or saving for those very children’s 
college funds—let alone providing for a decent standard of living.Brook
 Diel-Keast and her husband live and work in Medicine Lodge, Kansas. She
 was a convenience store owner and manager for seven years and is now a 
bank branch manager. Her husband has worked in the oilfield and in 
farming among other jobs. Like many families, they watch their finances 
and work to plan for the future. But paying well over $300 to $400 per 
week for two boys in home child care slowed down their financial goals, 
she said. They chose for one of them to stay home with their boys before
 trying for a third child, based on the financial burden.Working
 parents feel the financial sting from missing work in order to pick up 
and drop off children at day care. Child Care Aware reports that child 
care issues leading to absenteeism and tardiness in the workforce cost 
$28.9 billion in wages each year.Flexibility
 in the workplace is the one constant that many parents cite as helping 
them manage their child care needs and their careers.Megan
 Macy now works from home as a marketing specialist for Sterilex. She 
used to be the director of public relations at the Kansas Department of 
Agriculture and then was a communications specialist at Kansas State 
Research and Extension. When her daughter, Camille, was born, she had a 
30-minute one-way commute from her office to Camille’s day care 
provider. To meet her provider’s pickup deadline, she had to leave work 
before 5 p.m. She said having great bosses has helped her juggle work 
and family.“I believe being 
able to juggle family right now, and really in general, is completely 
dependent on how compassionate and understanding your boss is,” she 
said. Even so, there were times when she’s had to bring Camille into 
work with her when she was sick or had a doctor’s appointment. It was 
either that, she said, or take off a day or a half day.Child
 Care Aware says Macy isn’t alone. They reported that over a 6-month 
period, 45% of parents are absent from work at least once due to child 
care breakdowns, such as a provider who is sick or closed or a child who
 is sick themselves. Parents miss an average of 4.3 days of work, just 
because of child care complications.For
 rural parents who work shifts in packing plants or in other large 
industrial jobs, the challenge of a non-standard workday schedule also 
creates problems for child care. Joann Knight, Dodge City and Ford 
County economic development director, works with the county’s two 
meatpacking plants and other agricultural and industrial employers. She 
said it’s not unusual for couples who both work shifts to take different
 shifts so that one or the other can stay with their children at all 
times. Still, many providers only offer their services between 7 a.m. to
 5 p.m., and requiring strict drop-off and pick-up times. For a shift 
worker with a nonstandard schedule, it’s a struggle to accommodate child
 care, but throw in a sick child or a provider who has to quarantine 
because of COVID-19 exposure and it becomes downright impossible.Ultimately, though, it’s not just families who feel the sting. It’s their rural employers as well.The bottom lineThe child care gap not only affects families and the development of children, but it also hits businesses’ bottom lines.In
 2019, Child Care Aware estimated that United States businesses lost 
about $4.4 billion each year due to employee absenteeism as a result of 
child care breakdowns. Often parents are using up their vacation, 
personal time off and sick days in order to take care of their children.
 The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that only 16% of civilian 
workers have access to paid family leave benefits, and 3 in 10 U.S. 
mothers return to work within two months of their babies’ birth.The
 stats are even tougher for young, low-income mothers with lower levels 
of education, who return to work earlier to pay bills.The
 Center for Law and Social Policy found nearly 80% of workers earning 
less than $15,000 per year and half of workers earning between $15,000 
and $34,999 per year do not receive paid leave. Many of those are the 
type of jobs that keep rural communities going—gas station clerks, 
grocery store workers, restaurant workers and more.Rural
 businesses need minimum wage employees. Rural communities need 
professionals to staff their schools, hospitals and offices. But 
recruiting them is more than just offering them higher wages.Child
 Care Aware reported that 54% of employers stated that having adequate 
child care services reduced missed workdays by as much as 30% and access
 to reliable child care can reduce employee turnover by 60%. And women 
who receive assistance for child care costs are 40% more likely to still
 be in the job two years later. That bodes well for a business’s bottom 
line and the community as a whole.Considering
 what’s at stake, figuring out child-care solutions for rural working 
families has to be part of the infrastructure plans for economic 
development. It’s a question that needs an answer if rural communities 
are going to thrive now and into the future.Republished with permission

Rural communities and families struggle to find child care options