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CareerPathwayK A N S A S E A R L Y C H I L D H O O DAugust 2024

PathwayCareerK A N S A S E A R L Y C H I L D H O O DThe Kansas Career Pathway for Early Childhood Care and Education Professionalsimplementation work was funded by federal recovery dollars through the KansasDepartment for Children and Families (DCF). |Suggested Citation: Kansas Child Care Training Opportunities (2024). Kansas Early Childhood Careand Education Comprehensive Workforce Study Report, Kansas State University. Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation (OEIE)In partnership with AcknowledgementsThe Kansas Child Care Training Opportunities (KCCTO) acknowledges those who contributedsignificantly to this study and report including: Patty Peschel, Bronwyn Fees, Stephanie Parks,Sherron Field, Clarissa Corkins, Annie Herriott, and Leah Braet.Special thanks to professional consultants, Dr. Susan Sarver of MTN Girl Consulting and Dr.Catherine Huddleston-Casas of CHC Insights for assistance with data visualization,interpretation, and technical writing of the report narrative.

TableofContentsPage 7 Figure 1: Kansas ECCE Workforce Study Participation by County Page 8 Table 1: Kansas Mixed Delivery SystemPage 9 Figure 2: Early Childhood Care and Education SettingsPage 10 Figure 3: Distribution of Age by SettingPage 11 Figure 4: Highest Education Level by SettingPage 11 Figure 5: Overall Education Attainment by CategoryPage 12 Figure 6: Interest in Advancing DegreePage 13 Figure 7: Annual Salary by SettingPage 14 Table 2: Benefits by SettingPage 15 Figure 8: Income from Other Sources by SettingPage 16 Figure 9: Reasons for Entering the FieldPage 16 Figure 10: Years in the Field by SettingPage 17 Figure 11: Considering Leaving the Profession by SettingPage 17 Figure 12: Considering Leaving Current Workplace by Setting Page 18 Table 3: Child Age Group Breakdown by Race/EthnicityPage 4 Key Findings and OpportunitiesPage 5 IntroductionPage 6 Study MethodologyPage 7 Purpose of this ReportPage 8 Mixed Delivery SystemPage 10 DemographicsPage 13 Compensation & BenefitsPage 16 Recruitment and RetentionPage 18 Summary and Recommendations3Figures&Tables

KEY FINDINGS AND OPPORTUNITIESKey Finding #2 Compensation & BenefitsLow wages create severe hardships for the ECCE workforce and impacts recruitment andretention.40 – 50% of ECCE professionals have a salary under $25,000.FCC professionals are: older (over 50% are over 40); work longer in the field; 6% havehealth benefits through work; 5% have 401KPrioritize a locally assessed living wage as an essentialcomponent for building and sustaining our ECCE system. Offerretirement preparation, specifically to the unique challenges ofFCC professionals. Opportunity #2Key Finding #1 RecruitmentOpportunity #1Key Finding #3 Higher Education and Professional DevelopmentHighest level of education varies across the mixed-delivery system. Nearly 2/3 of FCCprofessionals have some college experience, 2-year, 4-year, or advanced degrees. Overall,nearly 2/3 show a moderate to extreme interest in advancing their degree. However, focusgroups were divided citing lack of return on investment.Opportunity #3Institutions of higher education and professional development entitiesmust tailor courses and education to meet the unique demands of themixed-delivery system.Provide more scholarships to support training, certifications, andadvancing their degrees.ECCE professionals enter the field because they are passionate about working withchildren (overall rated 4.5 on scale of 1 to 5).Start recruitment in middle and high school through Career andTechnical Education (CTE) programs.Expand apprenticeship programs and mentorship opportunities. Recruit Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) ECCEprofessionals to ensure the workforce reflects the diversity of thechildren they serve. Key Finding #4 Supports for ECCE WorkforceECCE professionals in Kansas provide care and education to young children and familieswithin a complex, mixed-delivery system and need supports across agencies/departments. Opportunity #4Intentionally build a more cohesive and collaborative cross-sectorsystem of supports for professional preparation and advancementof the ECCE workforce.4

Kansas Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Comprehensive Workforce StudyINTRODUCTIONKansas is home to over 175,000 children birth to age 4 and 275,000 ages 5 to 11. Accordingto the 2023 Kansas Kids Count Databook, Kansas children today have more diversebackgrounds than previous generations . Most of their parents are employed; 70% of childrenunder 6 in the state are living in households where all parents in the family are in the laborforce . Kansas parents choose from a variety of settings—referred to as a mixed-deliverysystem—for the education and care of their children before the age of public-school entry. Inthe mixed-delivery system, ECCE professionals educate and care for Kansas children inhomes, centers, preschools, and public schools every day. These professionals are central inthe children’s and families’ lives, yet we know little about the Kansas workforce. This projectwas initiated to provide a better understanding of these crucial adults. Since 1986, Kansas Child Care Training Opportunities, Inc. (KCCTO) has been offering trainingand technical assistance to early childhood care and education (ECCE) professionals inKansas. We believe that every child deserves exceptional care and that every ECCEprofessional in our state should have the resources to make that possible. Our mission is toensure high-quality early education and care through professional development andsupport for those who work with and on behalf of young children. Funding from the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF) allowed KCCTO toaddress goal six of the 2020 All in for Kansas Kids strategic plan and the following threestrategies: Strategy 6.1: Expand the number of professionals entering and remaining in theworkforce. Strategy 6.2: Implement a high-quality, competency-based professionaldevelopment system. Strategy 6.3: Support diversity, equity, and inclusion in the ECCEworkforce. 512

As part of the implementation of the Kansas Career Pathway for Early Childhood Care andEducation workforce, KCCTO undertook the Kansas Early Childhood Care and EducationComprehensive Workforce Survey to establish a baseline understanding of Kansas’s ECCEworkforce. We were particularly interested in learning from both the professionals who makeup the current workforce and those who left the field. To that end, data were collected fromboth current and former professionals in the Kansas ECCE workforce. The 2024 Kansas ECCEComprehensive Workforce Study represents the voices of nearly 6,000 early childhood careand education professionals from all 105 counties in Kansas. Members of the ECCE workforceshared their lived experiences by completing an online survey and participating in focusgroups. A series of in-depth reports will be forthcoming. METHODOLOGYUnderstanding why professionals leave the field is crucialfor recruitment and retention. Therefore, efforts weremade to survey professionals who left the field. Latersummaries will focus on the 800+professionals who haveleft ECCE and the implications for the current workforce. KCCTO partnered with the Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation (OEIE) at KanasState University to conduct this study. Through the survey and focus groups, ECCEprofessionals were asked a variety of questions about their ECCE setting and role;compensation and benefits; educational attainment; length of service in the ECCE field; viewsof community and state support; factors that caused them to join and/or leave the field; andprofessional development.For the first part of the study, KCCTO conducted an online survey and distributed it throughemail in both English and Spanish; no participants requested a paper copy. Using contact listsprepared by KCCTO and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), the OEIEstudy team recruited participants through emails, social media posts, word-of-mouth, andcold-calling private center-based settings directors to ask their staff to take the survey.KCCTO provided a $100 incentive for completing the survey in its entirety. This first report isprimarily focused on the ECCE professionals currently working in direct service with youngchildren in Kansas. Later reports will summarize information from those who have left thefield and subgroups from those currently in the ECCE field. 63

Figure 1. Kansas ECCE Workforce Study Participation by County PURPOSE OF THIS REPORTThis first report of the Kansas ECCE Workforce Study introduces the early childhoodprofessionals currently working as an ECCE professional in Kansas (4696). Specifically, thisanalysis of the data is designed to:describe the Kansas ECCE mixed-delivery system and the settings where workforceprofessionals provide care and education to young children,describe the demographic similarities and differences of the professionals practicingacross the Kansas ECCE mixed-delivery system,describe the compensation paid to ECCE professionals across the mixed-delivery system,andexplore factors contributing to the recruitment and retention of ECCE professionals.Figure 1 shows the distribution of survey and focus group participants across Kansas. Thismap includes all respondents to the survey and all focus group participants, not only therespondents included in this report.In addition to survey data, OEIE facilitated 39 focus groups (20 in person and 19 by Zoom).OEIE curated the topics and questions of the focus group sessions to add nuancedinformation to the survey data—addressing work environment, professional development,recruitment and retention, and professionalization of the ECCE workforce. Recruitment offocus group participants was designed to maximize the reach of the study by solicitinginformation from groups underrepresented in initial survey. While some quotes fromparticipants in the focus groups are included here, additional findings from the focus groupswill be addressed in later reports. 74

MIXED DELIVERY SYSTEMBecause there is no single setting designated as the only environment where early childhoodcare and education takes place, members of the Kansas ECCE workforce reported the varioussettings where their work occurs. To guide the process for identifying these settings,participants reviewed a list of options and were asked to identify all the settings where theywork. Derived from the survey response options or participants’ open-ended responses to theoption “another setting not listed here (Please describe)”, five categories of settings werecreated to capture the mixed-delivery system: (1) Early Intervention (EI) (n=260); (2) FamilyChild Care (n=1364); (3) Private center-based settings (n=2545), which include private centers,private preschool, and drop-in care; (4) Other ECCE settings where direct service occurs(n=488); and (5) Other ECCE Professionals in settings where no direct interaction with childrenor families occurs (n=39). Table 1 provides an overview of the categories and the possibleresponse options in each category. *Note: Potential responses include survey response options and participant open-ended responses to surveyresponse option “Another setting not listed here”Table 1: Kansas Mixed Delivery System Workforce (N=4696)8

Given that study participants were instructed to select all settings that apply to them, weutilized a nested approach using the order provided above to assign participants to thesecategories so that each participant was placed in only one category. Participants whoselected EI were placed in that category even if they selected other settings. Family child careprofessionals were placed in that category even if they also indicated they worked at a drop-in program, for example. The distribution of the sample across these categories shows thatthe majority of the current ECCE workforce in Kansas is working in settings with directinteraction with children and families and most are either in family child care or privatecenter-based settings. The individuals in the “Other ECCE Professionals” category are aunique subsample (e.g., trainers, higher education faculty, licensing specialists); they are partof the ECCE workforce in Kansas but do not have day-to-day contact with children andfamilies. We include the “Other ECCE Professionals” in this report with the goal of describingthe overall ECCE workforce in Kansas. In future reports where we may provide more detailedstatistical analyses comparing ECCE settings, we will exclude this small sub-sample. Figure 2depicts the percentages of respondents in each of the groupings per setting.Figure 2: Percentage of Respondents in Early Childhood Care and Education Settings 9

DEMOGRAPHICSThe data presented for this report represent surveys from 4,696 current members of theKansas ECCE workforce. Most professionals in the current workforce are female (96%), White(87.4%), and non-Hispanic (87.5%). Ten percent (n=488) of respondents identified as Hispanicor Latina/o. Among Early Intervention (EI) and professionals working in private center-based settings,over half are between 21 and 40 years of age. Family child care professionals and other ECCEsetting professionals are older; over half of them are over the age of 40 (see Figure 3). Figure 3: Distribution of Age by Setting10HIGHER EDUCATION Highest level of education varied across the mixed-delivery system (see figure 4). Nearly 1/3of family child care professionals have a high school diploma or GED and 1/3 have somecollege experience, indicating slightly lower levels of formal education than other settings.Early intervention and other ECCE settings each have over 15% of professionals withadvanced degrees, perhaps indicating higher educational requirements in those settings.Private center-based settings professionals had educational levels similar to earlyintervention professionals with the exception of advanced degrees. Figure 5 depicts theoverall educational attainment of participants by categories. Nine percent of participants reported achieving a Child Development Associate (CDA)certification, 13% reported having an Early Childhood Certificate (e.g., EC certificate programfrom a community college), and 8% of participants reported holding a Kansas teachinglicense.

11Figure 4: Highest Education Level by SettingFigure 5: Overall Educational Attainment by Categories

12Figure 6. Interest in Advancing their Degree by SettingFigure 6 shows the extent of interest that survey respondents expressed in advancing theirdegree per setting. While close to 2/3 of survey respondents indicated moderate to extremeinterest in advancing their degree, participants in the focus groups were sharply divided.While for some ECCE professionals, earning an advanced degree yields a pay increase andother job opportunities, most participants in focus groups agreed that the return oninvestment is a consideration when deciding to advance their degree. Focus groupparticipants also identified community colleges and other postsecondary institutions asassets to their communities and suggested increasing the efforts to promote higher educationprograms in recruitment efforts. “I get emails, I feel like, every other day about a KCCTOclass or a free training here, or my surveyor sending methis, or ...It’s pretty easy to find training, but as far asadvancing my degree, I’ve only probably had one coursethat’s been like, “Here you can take this course andadvance your degree.”

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITSLow wages and lack of benefits for ECCE professionals have been of national concern fordecades and this remains true for Kansas. Figure 7 displays salary ranges by setting. Across allsettings, nearly 40%-50% of ECCE professionals make under $25,000 (Early Intervention =43.4%; Private center-based settings = 50.1%; Family Child Care = 37.9%; Other ECCE settings= 37.2%). Other ECCE professionals (non-direct service) are the exception: only 18% reportedearning less than $25,000. According to the Kansas Department of Labor, the median wagefor all occupations is $45,250 . Among the ECCE workforce survey respondents, only 10.4%reported earning a salary of $50,000 or more. We can't really charge [parents enough] to be able to payliving wages or offer insurance or any of that [withoutrisking pricing parents out of child care]. So as much as Ihate [recruitment and retention of staff] coming down tomoney, I really think that's what it comes down to.Figure 7: Annual ECCE Salary by Setting135

Table 2 lists benefits that are typically available in work settings and the percentage of ECCEprofessionals by setting who have access to those benefits. Family child care professionalshave less access to all benefits overall. The differences are stark when looking at 401K orother retirement plans; only 4.6% have access to retirement plans. Other ECCE professionalshave the highest access to health insurance (76.3%), followed by professionals in other ECCEsettings (66.3%). Less than 5% of family child care professionals access health insurancethrough their employment setting. Table 2: Benefits by SettingThe most common benefit for family child careprofessionals is paid vacation leave (32.0%).Since these professionals are often self-employed, they are giving themselves paidvacations and some paid time off (28.7%).Professionals in private center-based settingshave slightly higher access to paid vacationleave (39.1%) and just over half have paid timeoff (51.9%).14

Across all settings, approximately 1/3 of ECCE professionals report financial support from apartner, family member, or roommate (see Figure 8). Just under 20% appear to bridge thegap by working an additional job while under 10% in each setting are accessing governmentsupports such as disability or food assistance. Nearly 40% of ECCE professionals do not haveaccess to other income sources.Figure 8: Income From Other Sources By Setting15RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION When asked about their reasons for entering the field, across all settings, ECCEprofessionals rate their passion for working with children the highest reason. Family childcare professionals often enter the field to care for their own children in their home, but thisreason was rated much lower for professionals in other settings (See Figure 9).“[An EC Pathway course in high school is] actually how Igot into it. Yeah, I worked for a preschool in town, andthat’s where I found out that I loved being with children.”

ECCE professionals were asked how often they thought of leaving the field. Responsesindicate workforce dedication to the field (see Figure 11). Across settings, 53% answerednever/rarely to the question “How often do you think about leaving the ECCE profession?”Among family child care professionals, 15.6% think about leaving the field often/always. Whenasked about leaving their current workplace, ECCE professionals show a higher intention tostay (Figure 15). Over 70% of family child care professionals said they never/rarely thinkabout leaving their workplace. This is the highest of any setting. Figure 9. Reasons for Entering the FieldOther than family child care professionals, 40-50% of professionals have 5 years or less in thefield (See Figure 10). For Early Intervention settings, 48.0% of professionals have been in thefield 5 years or less, 42.9% for private center-based settings, and 39.3% for other ECCEsettings. For Family Child Care professionals, however, 24.4% have under 5 years ofexperience and 23.5% have over 25 years of experience. Strongly DisagreeStrongly Agree16Figure 10: Years in the Field by Setting

Figure 11: Consider Leaving the Profession by Setting17Figure 12: Consider Leaving Current Workplace by Setting

SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONSThis initial data summary from the Kansas ECCE Comprehensive Workforce Studydemonstrates the complexity of the mixed-delivery system and the lives of the professionalswho care for and educate Kansas children. These professionals share a passion for workingwith children and a commitment to their workplace and staying in the field. However, thedifferences among professionals emphasize the unique needs across settings, especially forfamily child care professionals. Currently, Kansas children have more diverse backgrounds than previous generations,especially among younger ages. Data from Kansas, Annie E. Casey Kids Count DataCenter (see Table 3) show that children aged 0 to 4 are 63% White, 21% Hispanic, 7%Black, 1% American Indian/Alaskan native, 3% Asian, and 6% two or more races. The ECCEworkforce remains primarily female and White/non-Hispanic. Recruitment efforts mustfocus on BIPOC professionals to diversify the ECCE workforce, so they resemble thechildren in their care. Later analyses of both quantitative and qualitative data will assistin understanding how race/ethnicity interacts with the choices that professionals make inchoosing their workplace setting. 18Table 3: Kansas Child Age Group Breakdown by Race/EthnicityData taken from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Kids Count Data Center, 2023

ECCE professionals in Kansas are making less than the Kansas median salary and are oftendoing this alone without public assistance. The lack of benefits, especially retirementaccounts and health insurance, have long term consequences for this population andKansas as a whole. Family child care professionals in particular who are nearingretirement age are impacted by this lack of retirement and insurance. Infrastructuresupports must be put in place to help these professionals as they transition out of thefield. Recruitment into the field will also be more effective if benefits and salaries are increasedacross all settings. Given the unique needs in each early childhood setting, recruitmentefforts must build on the passion for working with children in this population and helpnew members of the workforce understand the needs within each setting. Professionaldevelopment organizations and higher education institutions may need to specialize theirofferings and delivery to meet the unique needs of the workforce.Across all settings, approximately 50% of the professionals have limited formaleducation. Institutions of Higher Education have a unique opportunity to recruit and workwith these passionate individuals. Monetary support for tuition and professionaldevelopment would assist the field as they pursue further education. Additionally,recognizing the many years of experience in the field among professionals will aid inrecruitment into higher education.ECCE professionals in Kansas provide care and education to young children and familieswithin a complex, mixed-delivery system. State-level leadership, higher education andprofessional development organizations should work to intentionally build a morecohesive and collaborative cross-sector system of supports for the professionalpreparation and advancement of the ECCE workforce.19