TOPEKA — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said at a celebration Wednesday that she accomplished her “No. 1 priority” by opening the Kansas Office of Early Childhood.
The office consolidates programs and staff from the state health and environment, children and families, and education departments as well as the Kansas Children’s Cabinet to create a single early childhood agency.
Kelly, who spent 14 years in the state Senate and will conclude her second term as governor in January, said she has been working on this for decades, and that it will continue to improve Kansas after her time as governor ends.
“I believe without a strong early childhood system, nothing else will work,” she said to reporters at the Docking State Office Building.
THE LEGISLATURE passed House Bill 2045 and Kelly signed it into law in 2025 to create the early childhood office, appoint an ombudsman to advocate for families, initiate childcare pilot programs and remove certain regulations.
The law reduced staffing and licensure requirements for childcare providers, such as lowering age and education standards for assistant teachers and removing license regulations for providers watching four or fewer children and no more than two infants for less than 35 hours per week.
The law also allowed families to opt out of vaccination requirements for religious reasons.
In August 2025, Sen. Cindy Holscher, a Democrat from Overland Park who is running for governor, accused the governor’s office of leveraging campaign support to try to gain Holscher’s vote on the 2025 bill.
Concerned with reducing regulations and vaccine mandates, Holscher voted no on the bipartisan bill. In November 2025, Kelly endorsed Democratic Sen. Ethan Corson of Fairway for governor. Corson voted yes on the bill and attended the Wednesday celebration.
IN DECEMBER, Kelly appointed Christi Smith, the director of Child Care Aware of Kansas, as the early childhood office director. Smith told reporters Wednesday the office will improve childcare access from the state’s previous system spread across multiple agencies.
“I hope we forget how fragmented all the systems were,” she said. “So that it’s a world in one year from now when a family walks into any office, they understand the resources and supports of everything that’s available, and not just what they intended to walk into that office for.”
IN HER SPEECH, Smith spoke about a woman who could not get childcare without a job and could not get a job without childcare.
“That’s why today matters,” she said. “House Bill 2045 doesn’t just ask to build new programs from scratch, it asks us to better organize what Kansas already has and to make our early childhood system more efficient, more effective, and easier to navigate.”
Abdul Yahaya, the co-founder of Open Minds Child Development Center in Olathe and a speaker at Wednesday’s celebration, said the early childhood office fills the same gap that led him to create his childcare business for his family.
“Kansas is doing something powerful,” he said. “It is removing barriers, streamlining access, and sending a clear message to families across the state: We see you, and we are investing in you.”
