In Governor Kehoe’s State of the State address on January 28, the Office of Childhood (OOC) was charged with rewriting child care licensing rules. Executive Order 25-15 addresses this charge from Governor Kehoe, which can be found on the Missouri Secretary of State’s website.

The Executive Order set forth several requirements that the Office of Childhood must meet:

1. Identify, evaluate, and implement regulatory reforms with stakeholder input across the state, including:
   1. Rural child care providers;
   2. Urban child care providers;
   3. Child care home providers;
   4. Child care facility-based providers;
   5. Child care staff;
   6. Child welfare advocacy organizations;
   7. Legislators; and
   8. Families with children in licensed child care within Missouri.
2. Eliminate or modify duplicative, outdated, or burdensome regulations to reduce state child care licensing requirements by at least 10%.
3. Improve the readability and accessibility of child care licensing regulations.
4. Submit a detailed report to the Governor's Office by September 1, 2025, outlining findings, proposed actions, and actions taken in response to this Order. 

Timeline

The Office of Childhood has developed a plan to address this Executive Order. The main goal of this work is to improve the state regulatory environment for child care facilities and homes without compromising essential safety or health standards in licensed child care settings. Click here to view the full timeline.

Task Force Group

As a part of this effort, OOC has formed a task force group comprised of 34 child care providers, child care staff members, child welfare advocacy organizations, legislators, and parents. The task force group’s role is to provide recommendations to the OOC on child care rules that need clarification, modification, or reduction. This web page will provide our community with access to the meeting content and an opportunity to provide public feedback into this very important work.

Click here to see a complete list of the task force group members.

Several meetings are scheduled to garner feedback directly from these members. The following list identifies meetings completed or scheduled for this group to convene: 

Meeting Date	Meeting Type	Agenda Items	Materials
3/4/2025	Virtual Kickoff Meeting	Welcome / Executive Order 25-15 Overview / Plan & Timeline / Discussion	PowerPoint Slides (PDF) Follow-Up Notes (PDF)
3/20/25	Virtual Informational Meeting	Review Plan for In-Person Listening Sessions / Discussion	Coming Soon!

In-Person Listening Sessions

OOC staff will be hosting in-person listening sessions to gather feedback from stakeholders related to child care licensing rules across the State of Missouri. Attend one of these sessions to provide your input.

Click here to see a complete list of in-person listening sessions across the state.

Link to Licensing Rules

The regulations under review for this Executive Order are:

• Licensing Rules for Family Child Care Homes
• Licensing Rules for Group Child Care Homes and Child Care Centers

Resources

The following resources may assist in determining how to identify rules for clarification, modification, or reduction: 

• Code of Federal Regulations (45 CFR Part 98): The regulations found on this website are required by federal law, so the licensing rules in Missouri that align with these regulations cannot be removed; however, the Missouri rules that align with the federal regulations may be clarified for easier readability.
• Licensing Alignment Study: This study may help with recognizing how Missouri’s current licensing rules align with best practices nationwide, in addition to how Missouri’s licensing rules stack up to its border states.
• Weighted Risk Survey Results: A survey was conducted during Summer 2024 to assign weights to all child care licensing rules for Family Child Care Homes, Group Child Care Homes, and Child Care Centers. The results of this survey may assist in determining how important stakeholders believe the rule is in relation to the risk to children in care should the rule be violated, whereas a 10 equals certain risk to children while a 1 equals no risk to children. 

Please email childhoodrules@dese.mo.gov and include Executive Order 25-15 in the subject line with any questions or feedback about this work.