Kansas City, Mo. OPINION- The week of Jan. 12, the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) — the nonprofit, city and county government and metropolitan planning association organization for Kansas City, according to its website — hosted an Impact Tour with the purpose of highlighting and showcasing quality across a few early childhood centers, which are a part of its program.
Five centers participated in this tour including EarlystART-St. Mark’s Child and Family Development Center, The Hundred Wonders KC, Paseo Baptist Learning Center, Brookside Montessori and Bare Essentials. These locations each strapped with their own early childhood education methods from Reggio Emilia and Montessori to Abeka. However, beyond quality, one question remains: how do these centers — and early child care facilities in general — work for working families?
The short answer: they don’t — at least not for union and trades families.
Eligibility
While many of these facilities have some flexibility in their pickup and drop off times, these hours fall primarily between 7 and 10 a.m. for drop off and between 4 and 6 p.m. at the latest for pickup with the exception of one, 24 hour child care center — traditional time frames, which do not fall within feasibility for most union and trade workers.
Bare Essentials Childcare Center located at 3200 Wayne Ave., is among one of the only advertised, 24-hour child care facilities in the Kansas City metro. With around the clock services, Executive Director LaTonya Fisher shared that this facility has opened as early as 4:30 a.m. to accommodate families. However, on average, she said the center will have drop off at 7 a.m. with pickup by 6 p.m.
Bare Essentials, along with many of the other facilities, are a part of the Missouri Child Care Subsidy Program (CCSP), which is a state funded program that requires its families to have an income at or below 150% of the federal poverty level or have a child under 13 with special needs and on an individualized education plan (IEP).
With Bare Essentials, the CCSP program helps eligible families pay for child care, but as a center, which deems itself as accommodating for all children, the families who do not meet this low income requirement would then pay a direct fee, which can total upwards of $1,060 per month depending on the number of days children attend per week.
For a multitude of MARC early childhood programs, including EarlystART, families must be within 250% of the federal poverty level for application. For 2026, these amounts include an annual income within $39,125 for one person, $52,875 for two people, $66,625 for three people, $80,375 for four people and $94,125 for a five-person household, according to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE).
To qualify for the EarlystART child care program, a family must fit into one of the following categories, according to its website:
- Below poverty guidelines, adjusted for family size and issued each year in the federal register by the department of health and human services
- Is unhoused
- Receiving public assistance such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
- Has a child is in foster care as foster children are eligible regardless of foster family’s income
For many union and trade families, eligibility — along with hours, income requirements and location — are just a handful of factors playing a role in their child care challenges.
These are among aspects International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 101 Member and National Institute for Construction Excellence (NICE) Kansas City Program Coordinator Tina Shonk-Little has experienced and ones that ultimately contributed to her choosing to stay home with her children.
Shonk-Little’s experience is a reality for many union and trade families looking for an alternative child care solution.
“This is a passion of mine; the struggle is real,” she said in an interview. “It hits home more than most, I don’t have family that can provide that support.”
This is something Jenna Johnson shared she has seen across her work as executive director of Heartland Women In Trades and her time with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau.
“I hear about it a lot. Childcare is an across-the-board issue,” Johnson said in an interview. “It’s one of the biggest issues impacting all [working] families; it’s one of the biggest barriers for women getting into the workforce.”
Continued complaints across union and trade job sites include facilities not opening early enough and not staying open late enough to accommodate for workers up to 10-hour work days and facility locations not compatible with job site locations.
“We have a serious gap in childcare facilities in terms of what is needed,” Johnson said. “Not only do the hours not work, but facilities are hard to find and waitlists are too long.”
However, this overall deficit is not the fault of one organization or group of facilities but rather is a larger, systemic battle for union and trade workers, requiring a specific, targeted solution.
Alternatives
After encountering several of these obstacles firsthand — including strict 5 p.m. pickup times — Shonk-Little began researching alternative options catered toward union and trade families to aid in retention and provide stress relief.
This solution included a plan called “Unions United Child Care” — a five-facility child care initiative exclusively for union and trade families, each providing 24 hours a day, seven days a week services with a union member fringe benefit cost-sharing initiative.
This program would operate on $6.3 million in federal funding if it were to get approval. This idea, Shonk-Little shared, is currently on the back burner due to red tape she has experienced with the State of Missouri. However, it is a project, she emphasized that she plans to continue to pursue.
And when proposed to the union and trade communities, it was a conversation both Shonk-Little and Johnson shared that brought the organizations together and received positive reception.
While Johnson shared that she is grateful for the current child care models that exist in Kansas City, she feels an industry-focused child care facility, such as this proposed idea, is the greatest solution.
“It needs to be industry specific and a coordinated effort to get something that works for this community,” she said in an interview. “It’s the only way that it will work sustainably.”
However, in the meantime, for union and trades families currently experiencing child care–related challenges, Johnson said exploring home-based child care providers — along with information-sharing among job site workers and guidance from community organizations — may offer more flexible options to work with the unique needs of workers in the skilled trades.
“We need to shed more light on this. Networking, making connections and learning how other people did it are so helpful; don’t sit with it alone,” Johnson shared.
“People can’t stay quiet on this issue. It’s an issue that most families are experiencing,” she said in an interview. “We need to tell union halls, tell contractors; We need to bring this back to the surface until we have enough people on board to get something to make [child care] better.”
Julia Williams — a Kansas City native — is a reporter and digital producer for The Labor Beacon. A University of Missouri School of Journalism alumna, she previously served as the editor-in-chief of The Northeast News before joining The Labor Beacon staff.
Williams’s grandfather was a Claycomo Ford Motor Company retiree and avid UAW Local 249 supporter, allowing her to understand the union difference from a young age.
In her free time, Williams enjoys spending time with her family, traveling to see her friends and hanging out at home with her cat, Greta. She loves a good cup of coffee, seeing local, live music and shopping secondhand. With a passion for storytelling, she hopes to bring her knowledge of journalistic integrity to the Kansas City union community — giving union and labor workers a voice, while holding people in powerful positions accountable.
