>> Research shows that the childcare industry undergirds all other sectors in our economy, but it's a fragile system plagued by workforce access and affordability issues.

Sarah Van Dover is an expert in early childhood education.

Proselytize is that it's more than babysitting and daycare, but a crucial foundation to helping kids get a smart start.

A conversation with Doctor Sarah van over now on connections.

♪ ♪ Thank you for joining me for connections today.

I'm glad to have you with us.

I'm I'm glad to have back with us.

Doctor Sarah Vanover and author and policy and research director for the Kentucky Youth Advocates.

Her latest book is bridging the gaps implementing public private partnerships to strengthen early education doctor Vanover is the go-to expert on child care industry issues.

She testifies a lot before legislative panels and Frankfort and she also present solutions and she's done that on this show and others and we're glad to have her back with us.

It's good to see.

Sarah, thank you very Mike, we have you all over the studio sometimes are over there for Connecticut tonight.

But in our forums, you've been such really the North star on this issue for policymakers and power players and those who are really concerned about the fragility of the childcare system.

It's not just here in Kentucky, as you've told us before.

This is a national crisis has.

And is it still that way?

Oh, definitely.

I'm just a few weeks ago I was with the bipartisan Policy Center which is based out of the sea and they brought together multiple states.

>> To talk about how we're working through issues together and we have that camaraderie when we come together.

States like North Carolina, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, all of us that have similar makeups and are going through these problems side by side trying to brainstorm together and to give each other times.

Yeah.

>> So let's just talk about the legislative session that ended April 15th and childcare did consume a lot of the conversation in Frankfort and there were there was a proposal that didn't quite get the traction that it needed to get over the finish line.

Are you satisfied with what lawmakers did in order to help prop up this fragile industry?

Satisfied?

Might not be the word that I would use.

I will say that Kentucky made a historic investment in childcare this year.

This is the most their legislature has ever dedicated to childcare above the minimum that we have always required to get our federal funds.

We've always had a state match that was required in for many years.

Kentucky only gave that state this year.

There are additional general funds that were given to help continue some of the improvements that were made in our childcare system throughout the pandemic.

Now the challenge is I don't know if those funds will be enough.

we we were able to secure funds to the child Care Assistance Program for working families with low incomes to make sure that the cost of childcare was not overwhelming to them.

We're able to secure funds for a program that allows free childcare for child care providers, which has been a huge benefit to the child care workforce.

Both too.

The centers trying to staff their organizations and to the child care providers who often make very low wages and may not be able to afford to have their own children right at the program that they work at.

That was that was a huge success for Kentucky with a first state in the U.S. to implement that.

And now we have many states trying to model our regulations and our policy on that we were able to continue funds for scholarships for child care providers to make sure we have an educated workforce.

The thing that we worry about is wages because the inflation that occurred over wages and every industry and the past 5 years, we've seen that the retail industry's the hospitality industries are starting off at 15 or $16 an hour for new employees.

The average pay for child care providers, not just new providers, but for all.

It's about $12.39.

an hour in Kentucky.

Regardless of longevity or seniority or that that would be on the high end of the average.

But we have new people coming in that are getting closer to 10 hour, maybe even less, depending on if the center that uses minimum wage, family childcare, home providers sometimes barely make that because they pay themselves.

After all their other expenses are paid.

So when you're competing with that type, that health care is a hard job, it's physical.

There's a lot of involvement emotionally with the kids with the families, everything that you do and then you think, well, I could leave and go stock shelves at Target and make $4 an hour.

More on how much more with that provide for my family.

I can get health insurance that way.

So the child cares had a hard time.

Competing with those they inflated wages and when they could not inflate their wages and that the issue is that you can only charge what families can pay.

That's right.

And so without additional support from the federal government, the state government wages have not increased in the way that we need them to.

When the federal funds completely go away.

The watches this year this year, September they're they're gone.

So when they completely go away and center's don't have that support for wages than they have tough choices to make, they will either have to increase their tuition dramatically up to 30%, which the pricing parents out of the market.

Yes, there are a number of families that anyway, yeah, there are many families that will say this is too expensive.

I should just stay home or they'll have to reduce wages may be close to minimum wage where employees say this.

I can support my family on this or they may close their doors.

And so the next year will really be.

Telling as we watch those federal funds go away and see if our child care programs can stay open.

So to put a numerical value on what the legislature did do, didn't come anywhere close to replacing the funds that would be lost from the federal dollars that disappear in the fall.

Know that what it did was put money and to replace the federal dollars for a subsidy program, which we're extremely grateful for.

But what we're going to see is that that wage issue.

Yeah.

And and different states have done a different way.

Some states are continuing sustainability payments.

Other have implemented wage supplement programs, even where like, if you work in the same child care program for 6 months than you would get a wage supplement twice a year, that would be enough to maybe encourage people to to stay within the field.

But wages are going to continue to be our biggest challenge because we know that 98% of other occupations make more than our child care providers.

Well, this was a budget year.

And so this was when the decision would be made for the upcoming biennium, which is fiscal year.

25 26.

>> The next time the Legislature takes up a matter like this, of course, they could do it in but they would have to have a higher threshold of votes to get there.

You're looking at 26 2026 before lawmakers address this again.

I mean, what are your fears about how many child care providers really do shutter their doors?

Well, I do think that the Cabinet for health and family Services is going to do everything they can with the money that they received.

>> To supplement the child care but a lot of it will be through programs that don't just increase wages.

It will be through see kept things, things of that nature so we're going to see programs that are trying not to price themselves out of the market but still attract staff.

And if they don't have staff, we've seen programs in the past 3, 4, years that close their doors because they don't have the staff that they need or they get so expensive.

That family stopped coming and the price themselves out.

So I think the key that we're going to have to.

Really KET in mind over the next few years is watch that capacity number at the state level.

How many programs are open?

Both centers and family childcare homes.

What's the maximum amount of the kiddos that can be served.

And as that number decreasing.

Yeah.

And and if that does turn to be the worst case scenario.

We're talking about maybe some women who are the primary caregivers who would reenter the workforce because conditions seem like more favorable to do so.

>> Then may have to exit.

So it has some major economic implications, definitely.

And we have to consider the fact to remember the fact that 79 out of our 120 counties are already considered childcare deserts and there's not adequate child care at this time.

>> What we really need to be in a situation in the situation to look at is how we increase access.

But we could be going into the next 2 years looking at a significant decrease in access.

>> So does your book bridging gaps?

Does it pose some solutions that perhaps the lawmakers have not considered yet.

I mean, you you do a brilliant job of testifying before them about options in and pathways.

But what are they listen to that?

And it's and sometimes it's it's a lot to absorb, right?

If you are immersed in this industry.

So you know it backwards and forwards.

But does your book offer solutions that could create a path forward for Kentucky?

Yeah.

So this book looks at partnerships between the government funded early-childhood education.

What would what would be head start programs early Head start programs and our public school preschools.

>> And how they might be able to partner with private child care in order to sustain the industry.

Those are our 3 I guess, care and education entities in the U.S. is privately funded childcare that parents pay the tuition for.

Are a public school preschool options which the state pays for and then head start which all the funds come from.

The federal government directly to local and to tease like a Community Action Council, a nonprofit.

And they each have their own strong point.

Public school preschool has the best special education services because they get those federal dollars into the state to support children with disabilities.

Head Start has some of the best wrap-around services they make sure that low-income families get diapers and formula and that parents can get education supports that they need.

But both of those programs.

Typically are only funded half day and so working families if they can utilize those, if they meet the requirements.

But it doesn't meet the need for full day care for all your care for breaks from the school system, things of that nature.

So private child care really is what most working families have to rely on.

However, they don't get funds for children with disabilities, which may require extra teaching staff or the training that the public school system gets.

They don't get those supports for low-income families that had start gets.

And so what we have to think about.

Really is capitalizing on everybody's strengths and trying to take at least 2 of income sources putting them together.

So that kiddos get the special Ed, but also the full day care or they get the supports the head start off.

First for our families who are living in poverty but working.

But they still get the time of the resources that the families I know a lot of people that turned down our public school system services because of the limited hours, I have a have a son with autism and he would've qualified for a public school preschool system which the county runs a wonderful public school system.

However, 3 hours a day would not meet the needs for working family.

And because my son has autism moving him from public school to a childcare program with different teachers in different circumstances.

It's a lot for a child who already struggle South disabilities.

So many working families go the private child care out.

But the children aren't getting what they need in that in that when we come together and we say, OK, so we're going to partner together.

And will say the public school system has a certain amount of money for certain about children per year.

Maybe they partner with the private child care and fuzzy and say we'll give you this amount of money to serve 15 children in our district this And then with that will make sure that you get the special education support that you need will make sure that your teachers get the training that we need, that the public school supporting that makes this amazing partnership and those kiddos the parents would not have to pay for the private child care because the public school to cover the costs for them and then they would still get the special that support while they get the full day of care.

Yeah.

>> So who is it?

That's not being included in this conversation?

Well, it it's tricky now because our federal wreg's our statement or state ranks in particular, Kentucky allows this to happen.

We have programs that have it happening, but it's very small scale.

And so there might only be within a county availability for 15 children.

Now we have some counties in Kentucky that don't have private child care and all at all or they have such limited amounts that they can't save spots to partner with Head Start school system.

And so access could be determined there.

A lot of times the funds go to state funded and they decide if they would like to partner with high-quality programs in their area.

But it if they're only serving half day, they can get double the number of children in and it's working for them.

It just might not be working for the family.

So really, we need to have the families at the table to to say, is this what's meeting your name?

Right?

And really we we have families at in every community that are voicing these concerns.

But we also have public schools and head starts in every area that are thinking about it and listening to it this past year.

We know that Mayor Greenberg and Louisville has really brought this attention.

We know that Fayette County has looked at how how they can do this.

They have several programs that work could be expanded.

What I think most lawmakers need to identify is that this expanded access, these partnerships does not mean universal Pre-K. Well, that's what that was.

My next question we know that Mayor Greenberg has embraced that.

Yeah.

And so is this a precursor to universal Pre-K?

You know, it could be what what we know with universal Pre-K is that there's only one requirement the child's So if you're for then you can get access.

Regardless, it has nothing do with income.

It has nothing do with disability.

Anything like that.

And it does mean that a lot of children qualify, which is a lot of resources.

These partnerships where we expand access.

It does not mean that you have to have the resources to open this up to everybody in the state.

Right.

And we've seen states like Tennessee that have opened up the public school preschool system but said, you know, any 4 year-old can attend, but you have to apply to be in a lottery and then we'll pick so many of you because we don't have access for everyone right?

So they're different weights.

The ways that states have tried to implement this.

But a partnership where more children get access to these resources does not mean that it's universal Pre-K. Yeah, it means that we're stabilizing some of these industries together so that our families who need certain resources have access to them, you could elevate it up to the universal level, but it really takes time to do that.

You can't just go from saying, hey, this year we served.

You know, 3,000 children and our county next year, we're going to serve every single 4 year-old Downey.

It takes 5 to 10 years in some cases to gradually expand over time and include more children.

Yeah.

Well, lets talk about the the other book that I really enjoyed the book that you have written to.

And this was last year.

I get my years mixed.

It's been a while.

>> Talk to us about this.

Well.

I think that we've seen an increase in behavior issues for young children in the past 3 to 4 years, particularly.

>> There's a lot that happened with families since the pandemic started in.

One of those has been related to childhood anxiety.

We don't often think of that age group of 3 to 8 year-old has them as having anxiety or depression or any mental health type of diagnosis.

We think of our adolescents, a right predominantly suffering from those which we've had a lot more adolescents that are experiencing it.

we've seen an increase in young children with anxiety that has come with a lot of challenging behaviors in the classroom.

When I first started teaching, if you'd told me had a child in my classroom with anxiety, I would have thought of that as a nervous shy child who didn't want to be around other people.

But we see a lot of those behaviors.

I'm coming out now as aggression because a child is trying to protect themselves from something they're scared of we see them as really having fight or flight tendencies, children that run away when they get scared.

The challenging thing is is that our general classroom teachers need our special ed teachers have not been trained on how to work with young children who have I've got 2 degrees in special education and I've never had a class on mental health of young children.

It's just not something that we really considered.

And in some of that is because my earlier degrees may have been a while.

Look when you talk to general classroom teachers, they're saying come up and they have children that have have this diagnosis.

They're having to make accommodations, but they have no training on it.

I mentioned earlier, my son has autism has a joint diagnosis, which is pretty common for autism of autism and generalized anxiety disorder.

And as we saw these anxiety come to light.

I didn't know how to handle it lie and my husband is also an educated there.

We had never really dealt with this, particularly a young age when a child really doesn't have the ability to it.

Tell you what it is.

You notice we started noticing a lot of the extreme behaviors when he was 3 or 4 while and initially thought that it hand just being strong-willed and about I was going to say, you know, just ban a stinker.

Things that I thought was he was trying to be difficult.

You on personality dry.

And then as we got to elementary school and he was in a more structured environment where he had to sit at a desk long days or he didn't know what to anticipate.

>> We saw these really be exacerbated and my my background in special education that my sisters background as a social worker.

And as we we talked, she really made it apparent to me that she thought there was anxiety present as soon as that took him to a counselor.

The first time to talk about she said, okay, well, I do think that you need to have him tested to see if he's on the spectrum.

But there's definitely anxiety And for me, it was really hard to take it first because I thought my child has not had trauma and has ties to.

you know, he's been in the same home since he was born.

He has biological parents, married.

You know, he's a he's had it.

The has had to worry about food, insecurity or stable factor.

You know, those kinds of things.

And so I thought this doesn't seem right because a lot of the children I've worked with that have had those stronger behaviors have had a lot of trauma in their past.

But we know that there's nature and nurture and a plan that's we have children who have medical at tendencies towards anxiety and other mental health conditions.

We also know their children have experienced way too much and their young lives and because of that have developed anxiety.

But as I learned, how to deal with some of these behaviors by by talking with his specialist.

I realize that I needed to coaches teachers a little bit and I started creating a cheat sheet for them on how to support him.

As I started doing more teacher trainings, I realize that teachers need this information and it's again, it's not something we're being trained on.

So I wrote my book really to help expressed early childhood educators that this is something you may see in the classroom and these are strategies.

But you may need to implement not realizing that you've had a child in your classroom that is trying to cope with anxiety.

But as I did trainings and people read the book, they they were saying, you on the tree school, we're dealing with this and I didn't know or and middle school.

I'm seeing so much of this and I've never been trained on it.

So it's a definite area that our general education teachers lacked training and we know our guidance counselors in our school systems are so well trained in it, but they have the whole school to think about.

And so when we think about supporting kids in the classroom and our our classroom, teachers need this guidance.

They need to be a part of their tool kit and it could also change the the punitive responses that so we can do Walter Gilliam, who vows from eastern Kentucky are ready, as I think is at Yale.

>> You just move season, Nebraska, Alaska, Hawaii, to interview him.

It's probably been it's been 7 years ago.

I'm sure.

But, you know, he had done a lot of research about fix Paulson of kids in preschool.

Yeah.

And some of this was race-based because there was that the prediction that a child of color may act out in a certain way, but to just kind of take it your what your thesis is here and overlay of what he's talking about.

You know, those expulsion rates in early Pre-K ended up falling.

Those kids throughout their matriculation and their formal education experience.

And so maybe that also changes some of the response we have to 0 tolerance policies or suspension or expulsion.

Do you think it will have that type of by-product?

I you know, I see so much and that's that the preschool suspension expulsion something that I have done a lot of research on.

Yeah.

It is 4 times higher than the K through 12 expulsion.

Right?

That is amazing by these little 3, 4 year-olds.

But one of the big reasons is that our early childhood programs, they are small businesses that have limited funding.

>> And they just don't have training or supports to support.

Children are especially at a time.

So when we look at his getting suspended or expelled, it's typically not your expelled.

What, what?

What?

It is a soft expulsion.

And so the director will sit down with the families that we just don't have the resources to help you.

And we really thank you need to find somewhere else to go.

Still expulsion.

Was I telling you that you need to leave?

But in most cases, I think the directors very sincere like we would love to help your child.

But I'm working on maximum adult to child ratios here.

And we have a child that needs so much more.

If you have a child with anxiety whose fight or and has a tendency to run out the door and you have to adults with 22 year-old right, that that's a liability risks.

You know.

And again, that's where the public school system has those special it supports and the and the private child care does not.

But when we see these types of behaviors most of the time they're in the child care programs because that's where most of our kiddos And so we have to figure out a way to to reduce that suspension and expulsion and a lot of it comes down to training the teachers into giving them additional resources, right?

Yeah, because I mean, you're right at you.

And I can't imagine it's a no-win situation for both the provider and the parents because then if the child is expelled than where they go, if they're already in a childcare desert or, you yeah, in a place where there's a waiting list that is a year when we see families that have had expulsions from 3 in 4 programs and then eventually allow a parent that.

>> The grandmother, somebody has to drop out of the workforce to say with them because they have been rejected for multiple facilities.

Doctor Gilliam's research initially focused on race and ethnicity.

But I know that he's getting ready to launch another study and we're looking more at the disability component to see it.

How are those disabilities affecting the kiddos that are being kicked out of child care programs?

Because our child care programs don't have those resources.

Well, you're just a wealth of information and knowledge.

I want to give you an opportunity to talk about what you're working on next because you crank out these books and hold a full time job and take care your kiddos and testify before the Legislature and Congress or wherever.

I know how you have the time.

But you're doing another research project that will it lead to another books?

Tell us about that.

Yes, I'm working with my publisher right now on setting up the initial content for a book.

>> On working with Neurodivergent children of children with autism or even a tht that fall into that category.

>> On out of the box strategies to support them in the classroom.

We know that our our kiddos who are new are divergent.

Their branch just work slightly differently and it's not a bad defeat that different, but it is a different these aren't kids that sit at a desk all day long and just take in information.

They often need to move more.

They often.

I think in ways that may be more creative may be different than that.

Their their peers that are typically developing.

And so the book that I'm I'm working on that I'm doing research on is finding different ways to support them in the classroom with with the arts dance with outdoor learning sensory rich environments where they have more hands the sensory input in the classroom and how these type of techniques would benefit them to have the best learning experience possible with my son.

He goes to our local, creative and performing arts school has about a major and having that movement during the day having an outlet for all of those repetitive behaviors that he with his autism and getting to do that and dance in a productive way instead of where we see children that have negative behaviors, they're repeating.

It's been amazing for him.

And as I began this research to see so many other families that are benefiting as well, I was going to say that would benefit any child to have that more project based interactive learning, right?

Because kids today really expect that just based on there >> you know, interfaces, so.

>> I can't wait for that book and you'll have to come back and talk about it when it's finished and is thank you for all you're doing to help.

All of us understand these early-childhood education issues.

But thank you for having us.

Pleasure.

And if you want to learn more about early child education of portion going Okay.

E T Dot Org website.

Visit our education side of things because they have a lot of resources to help you and you and your kiddos and also make sure you connect with us.

We have our week night public affairs show Kentucky Edition 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central that we talk about these issues and many more and then also connect with me on X, formerly known as Twitter, Facebook.

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Take really good care.

So long.

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