How can parents know day cares are safe if Kansas won’t release info on COVID-19 cases?

If you’re looking for child care in the age of coronavirus, don’t look to the government for much information.

While ambiguously reporting a total of nine COVID-19 clusters in the state involving child cares or schools, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment tells The Star, “We do not have breakdowns of staff, children or others available, nor do we disclose the business or locations of COVID-19 cases.”

In short, the state isn’t going to tell parents where the virus is present.

Neither is Johnson County. When asked how many child-care-related cases there are in the county, and the incidence breakdown between staff and children, the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment balked.

“Numbers of confirmed cases are increasing in many segments of our county. Most confirmed cases in day cares are among day care facility staff. JCDHE does not disclose locations, in order to protect the privacy of those affected.”

What about protecting the public? How is this the least bit helpful to parents seeking child care?

It’s not. As far as the government is concerned, working parents are shamefully on their own in navigating child care in the age of coronavirus. Why did we know so much more about where the nursing home clusters were? Are child care facilities that much less important?

State and local governments should be more forthcoming with information about COVID-19 cases in child care facilities — and schools, when that becomes more relevant this fall.

Mercifully, there are nonprofit networks that are helping both parents and providers through this pandemic And they say child care facilities have been assiduous in keeping kids and families safe.

“They already have very strict guidelines on health and safety issues, sanitation. That’s what child care providers have been doing for years,” says Leadell Ediger, executive director of Child Care Aware of Kansas, a statewide network of child care resource and referral agencies. “I would say child care is very safe. It’s reliable. I think families can really go to work, go back to work, with the knowledge that their child is going to be in the healthiest, safest place possible other than their own home.”

It would be helpful to have more information, though.

Ironically, the greater danger may not be coronavirus’ threat to children in child care, but its social and economic impact on child care providers and the parents they serve. Already barely surviving on an average income of $18,000 a year, providers are now dealing with higher operating costs associated with even stricter health and sanitation protocols, but also lost revenue. In many cases, furloughed or working-at-home parents have either had to or have chosen to take their kids out of child care facilities.

Ediger’s armchair guess is that the state could permanently lose 10% or more of its child care providers. Some rural counties may be left with none, she said.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reports that about 14% of facilities have been at least temporarily closed due to the pandemic. The Johnson County Department of Health and Environment says about 80% of the county’s providers are operating.

Tracking openings and closings of the state’s 4,100 child care facilities has been difficult during the pandemic’s ups and downs, but Child Care Aware of Kansas keeps a database of available slots statewide that parents can access.

Gov. Laura Kelly in April thankfully extended the Department for Children and Families’ “Hero Relief Program” funds to child care workers. And Child Care Aware of Kansas is administering $20 million in child care facility grants for supplies and temporary sustainability. Ediger said that in some counties, 100% of providers have applied for the grants. In Johnson County, 63% have. All should, she said.

Largely, however, for those facilities that have remained open or stayed open throughout the pandemic, the lack of support in general is devastating.

“They’re really struggling, and they really haven’t had a bailout like other industries might have,” says Paula Neth, president & CEO of The Family Conservancy early childhood nonprofit in Kansas City, Kansas. “We put the least amount of investment in those who are supporting those young children during those critical first five years.”

Neth said she and others in the field hope for $50 billion for early childhood education to be in the federal government’s next coronavirus relief package.

In the meantime, such organizations are doing everything they can to support and guide both providers and parents, Neth and Ediger say. But even after the pandemic, society at large needs to do more to support pre-kindergarten care and education.

“If we really want to see economic recovery, we need to be sure that our child care system is strong,” Neth says. “If our child care system isn’t strong, then our families aren’t going to be able to get back into the workforce and our economy’s not going to be able to recover.”