By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Andrea Hoss of Hays has been a child care provider for 39 years.
She was nominated for the May Child Care Champion award by parent Audra O'Reagan.
"She goes above and beyond to make sure my children are safe and happy," O'Reagan said. "My kids love going to day care and always say they had a good day. I love having a day care provider. I trust [her], so I don't have to worry at all when they are in her care."
Hoss, 58, didn't set out to be a child care provider. She was working in a bank. When she was pregnant with her first child, she had to stay home because of a complication with her pregnancy. She cared for two children during that time.
When her son was born, she went back to work for a week and a half and decided she couldn't send her child to day care.
She wanted to be home to raise her son herself.
Opening her child care allowed her to stay home with her son and eventually care for all five of her grandchildren as well.
"One, I love kids, and this profession has provided a good income for me," she said. "It supported me when I was married and when I was single. It adapted so I could do things with my children and be here for my children. When they came home from school, I was here."
She said she thought she would be a child care provider until her children graduated high school, but she loved her child care children so much, she's still a provider today.
Hoss said she wished she had counted the many children who had passed through her child care in her almost four decades as a provider. She estimates it's been about 400 children.
Generations have played with blocks and dressed up in her home. The children of children she had in her care are now attending her child care.
With her grandchildren still in school, she often attends programs for the children she had in her child care.
She sits in the back of the church when they get married and cries. She's a big crier, she admitted.
The profession is intergenerational for Hoss. Her mother also ran a child care.
"It trickled down the tree," she said.
Hoss tries to maintain a strict schedule. She promotes exercise by taking the children for daily morning walks and outdoor play when the weather allows.
"They just like to be outside running," Hoss said of the kids. She has a large fenced backyard.
Inside, she has a room with three play kitchens and a rack of dress-up clothes. The second playroom has two child-size tents and a play campfire complete with roasting sticks with plastic marshmallows.
She said the children in her care become members of her family.
A family who was using her child care just had another baby. Hoss had the baby for three weeks, and now the family is moving.
"It's been hard," she said, her eyes filling with tears," because they are like my kids.
"You build those bonds and connections with families."
She said her most significant challenge as a child care provider has been accommodating the diverse needs of families and individual children. She's had children in her care who had special needs, children who have autism and ADHD.
"You have seven people with all different backgrounds, and for the most part, it all works," she said.
Hoss has also had to navigate the ever-changing rules and regulations of being a licensed child care provider.
Years ago, she needed training to match her own schedule.
She organized a training session for a small group of providers in Hays. Those trainings have grown steadily. She now has more than 80 providers on her contact list.
Two years ago, she handed over the organization of the training sessions to Dana Stanton, child care program specialist for the Northwest Kansas Economic Innovation Center.
Their last training had 152 people. This year, the training will be open to 200 providers from across northwest Kansas.
Hoss said she has no intent to retire anytime soon.
She said as more child providers and centers open in Ellis County, the demand for child care has decreased.
Although she once had a long waiting list, she's now concerned about filling the two openings she will have in August. While child care centers can adjust their expenses when they are not full, vacancies for a home provider can be disastrous very quickly.
"I feel blessed that I have been able to be in a job as long as I have been," she said. "Not many people can say they have been in their job for 39 plus years. There's a few of us out there."
"I give credit to all of those women who are still out there."
She said she was shy about receiving her award because she said caring for children is her job.
"I want to give all day care providers credit," she said, "because it is not a job for everybody. You have to want to do it. It's not an easy task."
Submit your Child Care Champion of the Month nomination by clicking here.