This week, the Arkansas Department of Education launched a new website designed to assist families in determining and evaluating their alternatives for child care.
The website, which as of Thursday appeared to be constantly evolving with a number of new features added since its launch earlier this week, includes a searchable map that enables users to locate child care facilities close to particular addresses or to pinpoint facilities that provide particular services like weekend hours or transportation.
The map might end up being quite useful. The pop-up information currently lacks some details. Finding and comparing facility names, contact information, and ratings is simple, but it takes some effort to uncover other information like cost, the number of enrolled students, and the student-teacher ratio.
It takes an extra step to access such information, which is to navigate to a page with facility details and click on each facility individually. These details cannot be compared in large quantities, unlike locations and star ratings.
Although a test run across multiple providers revealed that the majority of those links don’t now lead anywhere, each provider’s details page contains links to reports on facility inspection visits, complaint investigations, and corrective action agreements.
The website is the result of the contentious 2023 LEARNS Act, which increased K–12 teacher pay, created a school voucher program, and started a state initiative to list and evaluate current child care options and find ways to increase access, according to an ADE press release about the launch.
Although LEARNS paved the way for new data collection to enhance the early childhood sector, it failed to find new funds to support those enhancements.
The new website will be useful for those looking for care, according to Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She claimed that because of her experience as a mother, she understands the value of having access to dependable and safe daycare.
Education Secretary Jacob Oliva stated that the website assists families in finding options in their communities quickly and that LEARNS formalized a commitment to increase access to high-quality child care providers.
At the moment, Arkansas needs more affordable early childhood education programs than it can provide. The education department reports that around one-third of Arkansas’s 120,000 economically disadvantaged youngsters are able to receive care.
Users can filter their alternatives with savings in mind, even though the cost isn’t immediately apparent while scanning the website’s map page. That is, whether they are already aware of or have the ability to look into which programs provide free or discounted services.
Although it only appears as an ABC Facility in the site’s filters, the state-funded preschool program is called the Arkansas Better Chance Program. Families that are eligible for this program can receive high-quality treatment at a reduced cost.
Head Start can be found on the map and offers low-income families subsidized care.
The voucher participant filter on the map distinguishes providers who employ the School Readiness Assistance Program, which was launched by the state department of education in 2024, but it isn’t indicated officially. Through a voucher system, the program offers families subsidized care. However, the ADE reports that as of July 9, 674 children were on a waitlist, indicating that the system is currently overburdened with needs.
The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is the final undefined acronym on the map’s filter list. The U.S. Department of Agriculture states that this program reimburses qualified participants, including those who attend approved child care facilities, for wholesome meals and snacks. Arkansas has the worst rate of food insecurity in the US, and it is particularly high among children.
Along with links to current educational materials, the state’s new child care website offers a way to examine and file facility complaints.
As mandated by the LEARNS Act, one page enumerates the regional groups currently engaged in identifying gaps in child care coverage. Cities, school districts, and education cooperatives are some examples of these organizations. They are working together to provide ideas for enhancing the early childhood sector on a regional scale.
The Better Beginnings website and the School Readiness Assistance program are also linked. With the introduction of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), which would evaluate providers based on the caliber of their teacher-student interactions, the latter rating system—which is now used to evaluate providers—is anticipated to alter.
Although many of the specifics are still being finalized, LEARNS calls for complete implementation by the 2026–2027 academic year.
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