Courtney Rhoades Mullins faces a difficult predicament: the Eastern Kentucky woman is expecting twins in May but doesn’t know if she can find child care for them any time soon.

One location, she said, might have openings in April of 2025. Another could take the twins — when they are 3 years old.

That “leaves the question of what do you do until they’re 3?” Rhoades Mullins said Wednesday. “We’re looking at possibly a year to three years before having any type of child care or day care available to them.”

She joined other parents on a call with media organized by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, which has released a new survey of 1,357 parents from 88 counties revealing the challenges facing Kentucky families who need child care.

The :

• Among private-pay families who do not participate in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), 30% spend $100 to $200 per week on child care; 30% are spending $200 to $300 per week; 28% are spending $400 or more per week for child care.
• 67% of parents had reduced non-essential spending in favor of affording child care.
• 54% of parents have delayed major purchases to afford child care.
• 34% of parents reduced essential spending to afford child care.
• 32% of parents used emergency savings to afford child care.
• 24% of those surveyed delayed their health care needs in favor of child care.
• 20% of those surveyed delayed having children because of the price of child care. And.

Kentucky’s child care industry — which some are working to — is counting on a financial boost from the 2024 legislative session as federal COVID-19 dollars that helped stabilize the industry during the last few years are running out. This leaves many centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents, cut services and even close.

Without help from the General Assembly, Industry experts have said neither the nor t proposals adequately address the problem, .

Without adequate child care, families and contribute to the overall economy. Wednesday’s revealed 12% of parents who responded had already quit work to stay home.

Situation is ‘not fair’

For Rhoades Mullins, being forced to stay home is “not fair” but “it’s also not an option for my family.”

Her husband is a public school teacher, she said, and she works for a Letcher County nonprofit, which currently provides her family’s medical insurance.

“The loss of an income would not be able to be sustained in our household,” she said.  “We really are having to have difficult conversations and make difficult choices  as we try to … celebrate the opportunity of having these twins here with us soon but at the same time (wondering) ‘how do I go back to work when my maternity leave ends?’”

Dustin Pugel, policy director for the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said about 65% of mothers of young children are in the workforce, a number that jumps to 95% for fathers of young children. 

“The reality is that a lot of mothers are involuntarily staying home because they can’t find or afford child care nearby,” he said. “A constant conversation we hear in Frankfort right now is that . This seems like a situation where you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want to get people into the workforce, the primary group of prime age folks who are not in the workforce are moms and particularly moms of young kids.”

Rhoades Mullins lives and works in an area trying to recover from deadly. She still sees a significant “lack of resources in this area” to recover from the disasters.

“You talk a lot about the need for economic development, but until there is a robust system of child care, we’re not going to see any change in our community,” she said. “Until the state decides to provide sufficient funding for these opportunities, you cannot expect Eastern Kentucky or our state to grow and to thrive economically.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

For Barry Shrout, raising four granddaughters is a role he willingly took on — and that he acknowledges is exhausting and expensive.

“The financial part of it is a big thing with me,” said Shrout, 66, a single grandfather from Maysville who has custody of the girls ages 10, 11, 13 and 17. “I have to daily watch every nickel and dime I spend.”

Grandparents like Shrout have prompted Norma Hatfield, of Elizabethtown, to renew her near- for more help for such relatives, mostly grandparents, who are raising an estimated 59,000 Kentucky children in what’s commonly called “kinship care.”

Hatfield, president of , acknowledges Kentucky has adopted some changes meant to aid relatives raising children whose parents are unable to care for them or have lost custody because of neglect or abuse with addiction often a factor.

But Hatfield, who is raising two grandchildren, said more is needed to aid the many older relatives who have stepped in to raise children who likely would otherwise end up in foster care — at significant expense to the state.

“I communicate with so many caregivers and I keep hearing the same issues, the same struggles, and I don’t see a lot of change,” Hatfield said. “It’s been nine years. Why can’t we do better?”

Kentucky Youth Advocates, while commending state social services for changes meant to aid such caregivers, continues to seek more help for those, many on fixed incomes, who have taken children into their homes.

Shannon Moody, chief policy and strategy officer for the nonpartisan advocacy group, said recent reports of children sleeping in state social services offices in Kentucky for lack of a suitable placement as well as others sent out of state to residential centers or psychiatric hospitals suggest a “crisis” in the system.

Placing children with relatives or caregivers known as “fictive kin” — adults known and trusted by the child such as a neighbor or friend — could ease the strain, she said.

“Some of the recommendations we are making are making sure kids are with family or family-based care,” Moody said.

But Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield and committee co-chair, expressed reservations about more financial assistance to such caregivers without more oversight.

“It’s a very big ask for the General Assembly to give money out without any strings attached,” Heavrin said. “I understand your story… but we can’t just write a blank check, either.”

Hatfield and Moody said no one is asking for a blank check but said it’s clear more work is needed to help caregivers understand what they are taking on, what assistance is available and the expense involved.

“We can’t just leave them drained, completely drained,” Hatfield said.

‘Dropped like a hot potato’

Until 2013, the state offered a monthly payment of $300 per child to kinship care providers who took in children. By contrast, state-certified foster parents are paid about $750 a month.

But the state to new applicants 10 years ago, citing budget pressures.

Since then, Kentucky has , prodded in part by a class-action lawsuit that successfully argued kinship caregivers were providing essentially the same services for free that foster parents provided for $750 or more per child per month.

Now, relatives can receive foster care payments if they agree to train and become certified by the state. Monthly payments range from the full amount per child to partial pay if the relatives can’t meet all requirements — for example, if the house isn’t large enough to meet state specifications.

But when the child moves from foster to permanent status, should the relative adopt or gain permanent custody, the payments stop.

“They are dropped like a hot potato,” Hatfield said. “You take what you can when you can.”

Good news for family, foster caregivers

One bright spot: a recent federal rule change will allow relatives to get full foster pay even if their homes don’t meet all licensing standards.

Hatfield said Kentucky officials are reviewing how to implement the change that would be “huge” for relative caregivers.

In more potential good news for such caregivers, Gov. Andy Beshear, in his Dec. 18 budget proposal, included $10 million a year over the next two years to increase money available to relatives who agree to take children in care of the state social service system. And his budget proposes another $9.8 million a year each year to increase foster care rates by 12% for all foster caregivers.

Hatfield said both steps would be enormously helpful in relieving the financial strain for families.

“I’m so grateful to the governor for the proposed funding in the budget for kinship and foster families,” she said. “It gives me and many others a renewed sense of hope.”

Hatfield said she and other advocates will work to convince lawmakers of the need for the funds as legislators begin drafting the state’s next two-year budget in the upcoming legislative session.

Other aid available to caregivers includes the Kentucky Transitional Assistance Program, which provides a modest monthly payment per child, Medicaid health coverage for the children, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, and a “Kentucky Caregiver” program which offers an annual payment of $500 per child for expenses such as furniture, school supplies, clothes or other needs.

The child’s parents also may be required to pay child support to caregivers, though advocates say that can be hard to collect in cases where parents are experiencing addiction, are incarcerated or have left the state.

An uninformed decision — such as agreeing to take temporary custody of children — can force relatives to forfeit aid such as foster payments available only to those who agree to accept them under a foster care arrangement with the state, she said.

And state officials don’t allow any changes after that initial decision.

Workers with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services are supposed to explain options and the cabinet has information, including a on its website, but families need better, simple and clear explanations, Hatfield said.

“People are caught up in a time of stress and all they hear is, ‘You can take temporary custody or we can put them in foster care,’” Hatfield said. “They say, ‘Of course we’ll take custody.’ Once you check the box, you can’t change it.”

Hatfield and Kentucky Youth Advocates are urging several changes they believe would help.

Mileage reimbursement

Relatives who take in children, often from abusive or neglectful situations, find they are required to take children to a host of appointments for medical care and therapy for the trauma many have experienced. They also are required to take children to any visits with parents ordered by the court, which can be weekly.

While foster parents get mileage reimbursement, relative caregivers do not, even as they are required to drive children many miles per week for appointments.

Michelle Tynes, who lives in Graves County in Western Kentucky, said she had to drive hundreds of miles back and forth to Louisville with no reimbursement after one of several grandchildren she took in temporarily needed multiple medical procedures at Norton Children’s Hospital.

She was able to pay for it, but Hatfield said buying gasoline is a hardship for many relatives.

“This one is really a big deal for a lot of families,” Hatfield said.

Respite care

Relative caregivers are not eligible for outside care for children for their medical appointments or just a needed break for errands or other events although foster parents do get reimbursed for respite care.

Shrout, the Maysville grandfather, said a trusted woman from his church cared for his granddaughters when he had to stay overnight in the hospital for a heart procedure.

He said he’s grateful for the support from his church friends but said he wishes he had some of the same help as foster parents.

“The legislature seems to be bending over backwards to help foster parents instead of kinship parents like me,” Shrout said. “We’re treated differently than those people are and it’s not fair.”

Guardianship payments

Relatives often take children under temporary arrangements in which they can get foster payments. But if the court determines the child can’t return to the parents, the relative then may adopt or obtain permanent custody.

That stops foster payments.

Advocates would like to see the state take advantage of federal funds available through a guardianship arrangement where the relative is eligible for payments as a guardian until the child turns 18.

Hatfield said state social service officials have told her they are investigating this possibility and she hopes it will become available in Kentucky.

Also, while foster children are eligible for free tuition at a state college in Kentucky, kinship children are not.

Hatfield said that would be a big help to caregivers of children nearing college age.

Opioid settlement funds?

Hatfield says she doesn’t know how much all these proposals would cost or how they would be implemented.

For that reason, she said, she’s urging lawmakers to create a task force that would study the situation and try to get a handle on the scope of the need and money required to pay for any changes.

“As much as we’ve been talking for the last nine years about kinship care, why wouldn’t we have a task force to see what the needs are,” she said.

And Hatfield said she has one final thought: Why not use some of the millions of dollars Kentucky has recovered in settlements with pharmaceutical companies over the opioid addiction crisis?

Addiction is what caused many parents to lose custody of their children, Hatfield said, asking:

“Why are we not using some of these opioid settlement funds for kinship caregivers?”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

After a disastrous first week of school that saw students in their district not getting home until 10 p.m. on Wednesday and school subsequently being canceled for two days, Jefferson County Republican lawmakers want a special session to enact changes to the district — including a “school choice” amendment and evaluating splitting the school system up.

The 12 lawmakers, who include House Majority Whip Jason Nemes and Senate Majority Caucus Chair Julie Raque Adams, signed an open letter released Thursday saying the school district failed to “keep our kids safe” and structural changes are needed. Both legislators represent Louisville.

“Our school district has failed for far too long,” the letter reads. “For the good of our community and, most importantly, for the future of our children, we must act boldly. And we must act now.”

The efforts they would spearhead if Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear calls the special session include:

• A “neighborhood schools” bill, which the lawmakers said would give students “the right to attend their neighborhood schools” and reduce the need for students to be transported across the county. Rep. Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, filed such a bill in 2017, but the bill faced about how it would affect magnet programs in the system.
• Creating a commission to evaluate splitting up , which is currently Kentucky’s largest school system and the 30th largest in the country. The lawmakers said “the district is too big to properly manage” because it has nearly 100,000 students and 165 schools.
• Extensive changes to the school board. GOP lawmakers claim the board is not up to the task of managing the $2 billion school district.
• Putting a “school choice” amendment on the ballot in 2024 to allow students to enroll in schools other than their assigned public school district and allow public school dollars to follow them.

Scottie Ellis, deputy communications director for Beshear’s office, said in a Friday statement that no legislator has directly contacted the office about a special session.

“A special session is an extraordinary step that costs significant tax dollars and should only be taken after full consensus is reached and legislation has been drafted and then agreed upon,” Ellis said.

Students returned to JCPS on Wednesday for the first day of school. According to , some bus riders were not dropped off until nearly 10 p.m.

JCPS canceled classes on Thursday and Friday to address its bus routes. Ahead of the school year, the school district and cut bus routes because of a bus driver shortage. The district hired to optimize bus routes and the district’s schedule.

In , Superintendent Marty Pollio apologized to students, their families, bus drivers and school employees and said the issue fell to him and his team. He added that over the next few days bus routes and stops will be reviewed, bus drivers will be paid to practice their routes and communication will increase, including the district upping the number of people answering calls for a bus hotline.

“I can say change is hard and it is,” Pollio said. “The massive change we are undertaking is extremely difficult, but in the end that can’t be the excuse. We have to be better at what we are doing.”

On Friday, Pollio told reporters that it could be “the middle of next week” before students return to school. As for “deconsolidation” of JCPS, Polio said that would bring several “challenges,” especially when it comes to dividing schools between areas with high and low property assessments. Multiple transportation systems and alternative school programs for each new district would also be needed.

“I don’t want to say it’s not possible, but I think it would be the most disruptive thing to this community,” he said. “And I will say once again, I think, especially students in high poverty areas would suffer more than anywhere else as a result of that.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

FRANKFORT — Kentucky’s teacher turnover rate is above the national average and growing yearly, Education Commissioner Jason Glass told lawmakers Tuesday.

On their first day back in session after a recess, the House Education Committee tackled the teacher shortage. Although no bills have been introduced, committee chair James Tipton said he’s working on a legislative package that will be ready soon to address the challenges of recruiting and retaining educators in Kentucky’s public schools.

The  turnover rate — or the percentage of teachers that do not return to schools or new teachers who leave before the end of the school year — has grown from 17% in 2017-18 to 20.4% for the 2021-22 school year, Glass said.

He said the national benchmark is around 15% or 16% turnover.

State representatives on the House Education Committee marked the beginning of the second part of the 2023 General Assembly with questions about the state’s teacher shortage. Education officials on the agenda included Kentucky Department of Education Commissioner Jason Glass, who discussed with the committee what Kentucky’s shortage looks like and how school districts are responding to it.

“If we work on increasing total compensation, support for our educators and respect for educators, I believe we can begin turning the tide on this difficult issue,” Glass said. “I also think that we have to be clear eyed about the magnitude of the challenges that we face.”

The number of  teachers joining the profession in Kentucky is fairly stable, Glass said. In the 2020-21 school year, more than 1,600 completed the traditional pathway into teaching and more than 570 completed the alternative pathway.

Glass said factors influencing teachers to leave the profession include pay, support and respect. The solution, he said, requires a multi-year effort that meets the scale of the problem.

‘Woke political agenda’

Some committee members questioned whether pay is driving teachers from the profession. Some also blamed safety concerns, a “woke political agenda” and policies respecting transgender and nonbinary students.

Rep. Russell Webber, R-Shepherdsville, said he has heard from teachers who complain of a lack of support from the state education department for their safety concerns in the classroom. He said teachers told him they were attacked by third graders. Pay was not among the reasons for leaving he heard from the teachers he spoke with, he added. He did not name the schools or the teachers.

House Education Committee Vice Chair Rep. Shane Baker, R-Somerset, pressed Glass about on using preferred names and pronouns of students. He referenced a previous comment from Glass about teachers finding another job if they cannot follow a district’s policies on preferred names.

“It was revised a few months ago after we had this conversation, but politics have entered way too much into education,” Baker said. “Education should not be about politics. I think there’s no question about that. Unfortunately, it gets put in there over and over and over.”

Glass responded saying that policies in school districts he worked in as a superintendent were clear on the subject. He and the local board of education expected “employees in the district would execute policies set forth by the district that were in alignment with best practice, and often in alignment with federal and state law.”

Rep. Jennifer Decker, R-Waddy, said the “woke political agenda” was among the top three reasons for leaving the profession in a survey of midwestern teachers published by the conservative blog Chalkboard Review. The been removed from the site.

Responding to Decker, Glass said that the issue of politics is not coming from teachers. 

“The people who are making pronouns and transgender issues and woke issues of priority in our education are politicians,” Glass said to some applause from the audience in the room.

One of the early questions was from House Education Committee Chair Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville. The of Louisville last week fact-checked Gov. Andy Beshear’s months-long claim that Kentucky had a shortage of 11,000 teachers and found that 1,744 certified positions were posted during April 2022 to mid-January 2023, according to the Kentucky Education Placement System. Tipton asked Glass to discuss the KEPS.

Glass explained the system captures information about certified positions, not just classroom teachers. It also does not give a “good point in time” measurement as school districts can upload or remove vacancies.

“So while there’s some accuracy over a period in time over any point in time, it’s not a good dipstick for the number of openings that are in the state,” Glass said.

The 11,000 number, he added, “represents the total number of openings over an entire year. It doesn’t represent the number of openings that we have at any one time.”

After the committee meeting, Tipton told reporters that Department of Education officials told him the number of vacancies among certified educators was 1,517. He noted that still is a concerning number.

“So even 1,500 at the beginning of the second semester, that’s a lot of job openings across the state,” the chairman said. “And you have to recognize that in some of these rural counties, those positions have been open the entire year. They haven’t been able to fill them yet.”

As for possible legislation to address the issue, Tipton said he is still working on it and considering solutions to include. It could be introduced in the General Assembly by the end of this week or next.

What to do

Officials from the Kentucky Association of School Administrators also addressed the committee. Last month, KASA’s released a report and policy recommendations on addressing the state’s teacher shortage.

Among the nine recommendations the officials presented to the committee Tuesday were a statewide application system, doing a comprehensive study of public education and funding incentives such as one undergraduate teacher education scholarship per school district and a $500 per week stipend for student teaching.

Amanda Sewell, a family consumer science teacher at Tates Creek High School in Lexington, is part of the coalition and addressed the committee. She works with high school students who are interested in becoming teachers. After the meeting, she said that her students who want to go into education are divided on how they arrived at the decision. Some knew instantly while others decided after taking courses.

Asked what high school students who are interested in a teaching career, consider, she said pay is a factor. For teachers, Sewell said, that means being compensated for long hours of work and in line with others who have earned master’s degrees and higher. Other areas teachers discuss are discipline of students and mental health.

Teachers’ voices should also be included at the table when it comes to finding a solution, she added.

“I love teaching. I think that we’re changing the world a kid at a time. So that’s why … I’m not in my classroom today, to come and talk about it because it’s really important to me that we create a whole nother generation of kids that want to inspire more kids.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

FRANKFORT — After a gunman killed 21 people and wounded 17 others at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last spring, high school students on a Kentucky advisory committee “realized we needed to use our voices to change,” said Malley Taylor, a junior at the Craft Academy in Morehead.

On Tuesday, the students as the chair of the Kentucky House Education Committee, Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, listened.

The Commissioner’s Student Advisory Council, a group of about 30 students from across the state, , such as strengthening active shooting drills and communication with parents and students. They also called for promoting and supporting “gun control legislation that would make it harder for an active shooter/assailant incident in the first place.”

The students advise Education Commissioner Jason Glass, who said to media after the event that he was optimistic the legislature would take students’ recommendations into consideration. The perspective of students and their voices is important in conversations about school safety, he said. “They are the ones that are under the threat of this on a regular basis.”

According to the , the U.S. has had 39 mass shootings since New Year’s Day. The nonprofit organization tracks data about gun violence across the country.

Taylor said the group was divided into three subgroups to gather information about recommendations on how gun violence should be addressed before, during and after crises occur.

The students released a full report of of their findings: the highlights were:

Before

• Promote how to use the STOP tipline, which is an anonymous reporting tool, in Kentucky schools.
• Improve the rate of intervention in concerning behaviors.
• Promote and support gun legislation that would make it harder for an active shooter/assailant incident to occur, including strengthening background checks.

During

• Improve the quality of active shooter drills and enforce existing requirements for them.
• Improve the training for staff, school resource officers and first responders to ensure quick response times to incidents.
• Create a clear notification system to contact students and parents about an event.

After

• Provide access to mental health support, including therapy sessions and other mental health professionals.
• Host town-hall style meetings in the community.
• Repair and rebuild the school building.

Tipton, the House Education chair, thanked the students for taking their research seriously and promised that he would read it entirely and bring it back to the legislature. He recalled when he and other lawmakers first learned of the 2018 shooting at Marshall County High School during a House Education Committee meeting. A gunman killed two students and injured 14 people. The fifth-year anniversary of the tragedy was Monday.

After the shooting, the Kentucky legislature passed the School Safety and Resiliency Act in 2019.  “We’ve already made some great strides there but that does not mean we need to be complacent,” Tipton said. “We need to continue to look at this, we need to continue to study, we need to continue to learn when these unfortunate situations happen,” the chairman said.

To reporters, Tipton said improving school safety through the addition of metal detectors, bullet resistant glass, more school resource officers and supporting mental health and school counseling programs requires funding.

When asked about inclusion of gun control legislation in the students’ presentation, Tipton called it “a polarizing issue.” As a gun owner himself, he said others should be responsible with ownership.

“I think it’s something we need to continue to look at and study and evaluate. I don’t know what the probability of getting something like that passed here in Kentucky (is) … It would be something that would be very difficult but I think we still need to examine that issue,” Tipton said.

Peter Jefferson, a sophomore from Henry Clay High School in Lexington, told reporters that while feeling anxious about a possible school shooting is not constant, it’s something he and his peers are conscious of. Joud Dahleh, a junior at Ignite Institute in Boone County, agreed that it is not a day-to-day focus, but her classmates have had conversations with each other and teachers about it.

“My school is mostly glass so we walk around sometimes and just wonder how safe we would be if that were to occur,” Dahleh said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .