The Better Beginnings incentive grant is a one-time cash award given upon initial certification for each star level achieved, based on availability of funding. The amount is determined by both the star level achieved and the total allowed capacity of the facility.

All children grow and develop at their own pace. The Kindergarten Readiness Indicator Checklist identifies the skills, knowledge, and behaviors that help children be prepared to enter school with confidence. Use this checklist to focus on the areas you can help your child with to be ready for kindergarten.

Arkansas Resource Connections is offering a new, streamlined service that brings efficiency and effectiveness to the job search and hiring process for early education professionals.

Directors Orientation is a series of foundation level trainings that are required for all new directors. Essential to the success of program directors is finding the information they need and developing a network of peers who share and understand their responsibilities. Directors Orientation is the first step toward both of these objectives. 

View courses, resources, helpful links and more.

Dates are available for the 2024/2025 Conscious Discipline Training Opportunities in Arkansas. Class sizes are limited and fill quickly.

Explorers Curriculum is designed for early childhood educators and preschool-aged children. It can be used in any setting, including private preschool programs, public school programs, and family child care homes.

AR Resource Connections is a FREE, comprehensive online resource for early childhood providers and professionals, offering over 2500 resources to assist in your day-to-day work.

ECEP provides LENA Grow to infant and toddler classrooms to support teacher-child interactions. LENA Grow is a strength-based coaching framework that facilitates early educators with increasing conversational turns, enhancing language environments, and supporting social emotional development. Research has found a relationship between classrooms that participated in LENA Grow and an increase in CLASS scores.

In early 2025, NAEYC is implementing a revised accreditation system with tiered levels of quality assessment. This pilot study will evaluate the reliability and validity of the tiered assessment system across diverse communities and program types.

The CDELS are being revised, and the workgroup is interested in hearing your feedback. Your responses to these survey items will be used as we consider how the CDELS could be enhanced to better meet the needs of Arkansas’ children and educators.

Join the informational ZOOM meetings for providers occurring the first Tuesday of every month at NOON.

What is CLASS? CLASS is an observation tool that measures the quality of teacher- child interactions. The tool is correlated to educational outcomes for children and is used in classrooms serving children from birth-3rd grade across the country.

Step Up to WAGE$ is an education-based wage supplement initiative that pays semi-annual stipends to Birth-5 teaching staff in centers and family homes. These stipends are based on the level of education as well as continuous work hours in the same child care program during a six-month certification period.

As we get closer to fall, we will have a more realistic picture of our total numbers since openings usually come up. Once we know, we will take the wait list and process those applications in the order they are received. This is not a funding issue – only a capacity issue.

The Arkansas Department of Education is excited to announce we will have two fall LETRS for Early Childhood Educators Cohort. This professional learning course will run from October 2024 - February 2025. The final day to complete LETRS EC online coursework will be February 16, 2025.