The Arkansas Department of Education unveiled a new website this week that aims to help families identify and assess their child care options.
The site – which as of Thursday seemed ever-changing, with several new features added since its launch earlier in the week – boasts a searchable map that allows users to find child care near specific addresses, or to identify centers that offer specific features like transportation or weekend hours.
The map could likely shape up to be quite handy. For now, some details are missing from the pop-up information. Facility names, contact info and ratings are easy to find and compare, but other details — like cost, how many students are enrolled and the student-teacher ratio — take some digging to find.
Accessing that information requires an additional step, rerouting to a “facility details” page and clicking the facilities one by one. Unlike locations and star ratings, these details can’t be compared in bulk.
The details page for each provider includes links to reports on facility inspection visits, complaint investigations and corrective action agreements, though a test run through several providers showed that most of those links don’t yet lead anywhere.
According to a press release about the launch from ADE, the website is a product of the 2023 LEARNS Act, controversial legislation that raised K-12 teacher pay, established a school voucher system and launched a state effort to inventory and assess existing child care options and identify ways to expand access.
While LEARNS established a path for new data collection to improve the early childhood industry, it did not identify new funding to pay for those improvements.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the new site would be helpful for people in search of care. She said her experience as a mom means she knows “how important it is to have access to safe and reliable childcare.”
Education Secretary Jacob Oliva added that LEARNS codified a commitment to improve access to quality child care providers, and that the website helps families quickly search for options in their communities.
Arkansas currently has a greater need for affordable early child care programs than resources it can offer. According to data from the education department, about one-third of Arkansas’s reported 120,000 children who are classified as “economically disadvantaged” can access care.
Though cost isn’t immediately discernable by searching the website’s map page, users can filter their options with savings in mind. That is, if they already know — or can research — what programs offer subsidized or free services.
The Arkansas Better Chance Program is the state-funded preschool program, though it’s just listed as “ABC Facility” on the site’s filters. Families who qualify for this program can pay a lower rate for quality care.
Head Start provides subsidized care to low-income families, and can be searched for on the map.
It’s not explicitly stated, but the “voucher participant” filter on the map differentiates providers that use the School Readiness Assistance Program, which the state department of education started in 2024. The program provides families with subsidized care through a voucher system. The system is currently overloaded with need, however, and 674 kids were waitlisted as of July 9, according to the ADE.
The last unexplained acronym on the map’s filter list is the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this program provides reimbursements for nutritious meals and snacks to eligible participants, including at designated child care centers. Arkansas leads the nation in food insecurity, and the rate among children is also high.
The state’s new child care website provides a place to review and submit facility complaints, as well as links to existing educational resources.
One page lists the local organizations now working to identify gaps in child care coverage, as directed by the LEARNS Act. These organizations range from cities, to school districts and education cooperatives. Together, they’re brainstorming ideas to improve the early childhood industry at the regional level.
Also linked are the School Readiness Assistance program and Better Beginnings websites. The latter is the current rating system providers are judged by, but that’s expected to change with the implementation of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), which would measure providers by the quality of their teacher-child interactions.
Many of the details are still being worked out, but LEARNS calls for full implementation by the 2026-27 school year.
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