Kansas parents scramble to find day care until school begins

Parents in Kansas are having a hard time finding day care until school starts after Labor Day, and day care providers are having to turn parents away.

OF EDUCATION ABOUTTHAT IDEA.THE BOARD MEETSTOMORROW.SCHOOLS ARE ANIMPORTANT PART OF THECARE AND EDUCATIONPARENTS RELY ON FORTHEIR CHILDREN.SO WHAT HAPPENS WHENTHAT SAFE SPACE FORKIDS DOESN'T START ONTIME?41 ACTION NEWSREPORTER SARAH PLAKESHOWS US THECHALLENGES FORPARENTS AND DAYCARES.Schools in Kansas aren'topening until after Labor Day,so that's putting a lot ofpressure on daycare providersand parents, specifically thehome daycare providers.As soon as we heard it it waspanic.The announcement thatKansas schools would startafter Labor day brought on alot of uncertainty for JessicaSilvey, who runs Noel'sPlayhouse, a home day carecenter in Lenexa.Within ten minutes of thatannouncement we had abunch of parents being like,hey can you take my kids?And I was like, I don't know.The department of health andenvironment gave providerslike Silvey the okay to take ontwo extra school-age kids, butshe can't take any more.Six school age kids that weresupposed to go back this falland now they're all staying.That means all the babies Iwas supposed to take this fallsuddenly can't come.We talked to one parentearlier in the month about hisstruggles finding daycare..A lot of them won't tell me howmany people are in front of meon the wait list, they won'tgiveme an actual projection; Iknow it's hard to projectbecause it's complicated.But there are resources inKansas, like Day CareConnection, that help parentsfind care close to their schooWe are getting more calls butwe still have several openings.It's an interesting fact that nodaycare homes have beenfound or cited to have covid-19 but several centers have.They say there are hundredsof openings for day care onthe Kansas side, and they'remostly at-home providers.People trust homes more.They can easily keep moresanitary.

There's generallyabout 5 to 6 kids instead of50.The search will likely be evenharder now.We're mostly really concernedfor our parents, hon