By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Two Hays child care providers have received state grants to increase slots for children. A third facility has received a private grant.
The Hays Area Children's Center received $31,000 from Child Care Aware through its Capacity Building grant to hire additional staff for its summer program.
Most of those funds will go to the center to reimburse expenses incurred to hire additional staff this summer, Sarah Wasinger, Child Care Task Force of Ellis County facilitator.
Brandi Oakley, Hays Area Children's Center director, said it doubled the size of the school-age program from 16 to 32 children. That program takes kindergarten through fourth-grade students.
The extra staffing also provided the needed supervision for the children to go on multiple field trips during the summer, Oakley said.
The rest of the funding will pay for a paraprofessional in the preschool room, which will allow that program to take three extra children to reach its full license limit of 15 students, Oakley said.
That position will be funded through the fall semester.
Oakley said the center's next goal is to increase slots in its infant and toddler program.
Learning Cross Child Care received $14,000 in state funds for supplies, furnishings and playground equipment to open a new child care center at the First Presbyterian Church, 2900 Hall, Hays.
Learning Cross has an existing facility on Canterbury, but this would be an expansion of that program, with the new center being a satellite location.
Grow Hays' Grove project also recently received $26,000 from the Patterson Family Foundation to pay for furnishings and equipment.
The Grove will be a housing project at the corner of 27th and Canterbury in Hays.
A child care center and a senior center are parts of the project. The child care center could serve up to 77 children from infant to preschool. The slots would be open to the public. The project does not have a completion date.
Since the child care task force was founded in 2021, the unmet need for child care spots has decreased from more than 700 to fewer than 500 spots needed in Ellis County as of Tuesday.
This does not take into consideration the child care projects that are in the works but have not opened, Wasinger said.
Those pending projects include the new Learning Cross center, HaysMed's child care center, which is nearing completion, Holy Family's early childhood program, and The Grove's child care center.
Once those new programs open, the unmet need should drop to about 275 spots, Wasinger said.
Wasinger said task force members are visiting with in-home providers who said they are starting to have more open spots for children from 18 months to 5 years old.
She said she sees in-home providers being key to providing care for the rest of the families in need of child care services.
"We now feel the focus needs to be turned to infant care—birth to 18 months," Wasigner said.
The state requires more caretakers in programs that care for infants, which drives up the cost of wages and benefits.
"We are not aware of anywhere in the state of Kansas or the United States that has been able to provide spots for infant care and make it sustainable," Wasinger said.
When the task force did its initial child care survey, 32 percent of the respondents were seeking care for infants through 18-month-olds.
The state has launched a pilot program in a couple of counties that are providing subsidies to providers who add infant care. Wasigner said she would like to see that program expanded.
"I would be surprised if we didn't have some providers in Hays and Ellis County who won't be interested in doing that if it would be a little bit more affordable on their end," she said.
Wasinger said local providers and parents have continued to express frustration with what they see as onerous child care regulations in Kansas.
"We have talked this whole time about how Kansas is one of the heaviest regulated child care states in the United States," she said. "We want to make sure the quality of care is still there, but are there regulations in place today that don't necessarily make sense anymore?"
Kansas' child care regulations are under review. Follow this link to make comments. You do not have to be a provider to offer feedback.
For parents looking for child care, Child Care Aware of Kansas, which can be found at https://ks.childcareaware.org/, can assist in finding open child care spots in your area.
To stay up-to-date on child care issues in Ellis County, you can follow the task force on Facebook or check out the task force's website.