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Can we talk about child care workers for a few minutes? My latest for @kcur, about how they& #39;re watching the kids of essential workers but lack a safety net for themselves: https://bit.ly/34n6obB ">https://bit.ly/34n6obB&q... 1/
This isn& #39;t a new story: low pay and lack of health insurance have been problems for early childhood educators for a long time. I reported on this issue a lot when I was in Indiana (how was that 6 years ago) and last spring when KC voters considered a pre-K sales tax. 2/
@LynnHorsley had already been doing some fabulous work on child care centers staying open to support essential workers for @kcur, but after seeing some of @MelissaRooker& #39;s tweets, I decided we needed a story about the workers themselves. 3/
Originally I was just going to do newscast spots. But then I decided this deserved more airtime than that. That meant I need to find child care workers. I started with contacts on the KS side of the state line, but after four child care workers declined to talk ... 4/
... it became apparent that they were scared. And let& #39;s unpack that for just a minute. We& #39;re talking about workers who make $9.25 an hour in KS or around $23,490/year in Missouri. That& #39;s $10 less than what I made at my first newspaper job. 5/
So I know what it& #39;s like to make less than $24,000/year. I DON& #39;T know what it& #39;s like to support a family on that income or to pay back student loans. But money is tight, to say the least. I can definitely respect how vulnerable workers feel. 6/
That& #39;s why when I reached out to Annie Watson over @TurnthePageKC to see if she had any names for me, I said we would be willing to work with child care workers and providers if they had concerns about protecting their privacy. 7/
Shantelle Tomlin, who owns a child care center, was comfortable using her full name, and you& #39;ll see that in my story. Samantha and Angela, the two child care workers, were more comfortable with using their first names only. 8/
