House Education Early Childhood Subcommittee
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- October 4, 2026
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
0:00
Thank you guys and I'm sorry for all of the technical issues, but we really appreciate you being here and appreciate you guys. It's been a long couple of days with very long meetings, and they're not done yet.
So we're going to go ahead and get started. I just, first thing is to take a look at the minutes, and need a motion to approve the minutes. Thank you. Second? All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. And the next thing, I know we've talked several times about the Women's Foundation report, and we have our expert here to talk to us about it and some specifics about how they got the information that they got and what it means for Arkansas.
So, Ms. Maddie, if you would introduce yourself for the record and hit your presentation, that would be great. Thank you. It is. Now you're on. if you'll pull your mic just a little bit closer I don't
Speaker 9
1:37
think it's working or turn that one off
and I'll see if yours works better. It sounded better.
Maddie San
Unverified
2:45
Testing. There we go. Yay. Thank you, everyone. Sorry for those technical
Maddy Sanjuanan
Unverified
3:06
difficulties. Pleasure to be with you here this afternoon. My name is Maddie San Juan. I am the Director of Strategic initiatives for the Women's Foundation of Arkansas. Thank you so much, Representative
Garner, for inviting me to speak today and share about our latest research report that we commissioned at the Women's Foundation of Arkansas entitled, Holding It All Together, Working Moms and Child Care in Arkansas in Partnership with Ingeborg Initiatives. And so I'm going to go through this fairly quickly for the sake of time, but let's dive right in. So the Women's Foundation of Arkansas's mission is to ensure economic security for women and girls throughout the state. We've been a part of Arkansas since 1998, and we
do all kinds of things, including commission our own research on the status of women and girls to better understand our needs and challenges across Arkansas so that we can better respond to those. We really wanted to dive in more to child care and what that means for women's labor force participation right here in Arkansas. And so our key findings of this report are that Arkansas moms want to work and are working. Child care costs are a critical barrier to employment.
Flexible hours was the most desired workplace support. Maternal leave is inadequate for many. And the invisible mental load is real and unsustainable. So looking into what existing data tells us about working moms in Arkansas, the Arkansas labor force participation rate is consistently about 4% to 5% below the national level for women.
When we look at, when we compare working moms in Arkansas to working moms in the U.S. though, Arkansas moms are working about the same amount. So that gap of about 4% to 5% disappears. This table here shows a breakdown between women with kids and without kids and their employment status. That Kids Now column refers to women who have children under the age of 18 who are a part of their household.
And the no kids refers to women who either have never had children or whose children are over 18 and no longer living in the household. So this table shows that in every category, women with children are more likely to be working both part-time and full-time jobs than women without kids. And so we found through our research that moms in Arkansas are working primarily. We looked at a variety of factors with employment status, including marriage, race, metro versus rural areas, and educational attainment.
You can see all of those tables in our full report, which I believe you have a copy of. But I wanted to highlight this table in particular, which looked at rural versus metro areas in Arkansas. Rural women are less likely to be employed full-time than women in metro areas. and rural women are more likely to be working part-time, self-employed, or looking for work than their metro women counterparts, and this is true for both those prime working-age women and all women. We defined prime working-age women as ages 25 through 54, so not that early career
and not the later career closer to retirement age, so we will refer to that throughout our research. In addition to looking at existing data on how women are working in our state, we wanted to talk to women here in Arkansas and hear from their perspective as well. So we conducted an online survey with over 800 respondents. We conducted 16 virtual focus groups, 7 in-person focus groups, and 8 one-on-one interviews to really hear from moms across Arkansas what their needs are.
And we found, especially through our focus groups and in our conversations, that a lot of the women shared stories that revealed delight in parenting and the desire to spend more time with their children. We heard that over and over again. I wish I had more time with my kids. I wish I had more time with my kids. And we also heard that they found fulfillment with their professional work in a lot of instances and want their kids to see them working hard on important things. So both working and raising children were equally important to them.
So when we asked what they wish they had more support for, we heard over and over again that flexibility was the number one most requested workplace support. Over half of the women we talked to cited inflexible schedules as standing between them and a fuller workforce participation. 80% of the moms that we talked to said that flexible working hours are the most important support they need to accept or maintain full-time work.
So we also asked employment preferences of those prime working-age women, 25 to 54 years of age, and this graph showed that of the women that we talked to, most of them want to work. When we asked what their ideal job situation would be, respondents most often indicated a full-time position outside of the home. So they would go to an office, they would go to a hospital, they would go to the school or wherever their workplace was. Moms
with kids in the home overwhelmingly want to work full-time, but the desire to go to outside of the home was slightly behind a remote option or a hybrid role. So we also talked to moms and they would like to have remote positions or part-time positions much more frequently than they actually reported being employed in those arrangements. So we also know that child care is
expensive. It's expensive in Arkansas. It's expensive across the United States. We heard over and over again that the child care costs are a workforce barrier. 69% of Arkansas moms cited child care costs as a barrier to their employment. And this quote, I think, sums it up perfectly here. One mom that we talked to said, I don't really know why I work. My entire paycheck is going toward child care. So we wanted to understand the true cost of this
for most working families in Arkansas. $8,900 is the estimated average annual cost of child care for one infant in Arkansas. That's about 14.6% of the median family income. When we look at multiple kids in child care, The estimated average annual cost is $17,500 for one infant and one toddler in care in Arkansas. That's about 27% of the median family income in our state.
We heard from a lot of moms that their child care payment is as equal, if not more, than their mortgage or rent payments. It is hard to
Speaker 28
10:39
pay bills. It's hard to save on top of the cost of child
Maddy Sanjuanan
Unverified
10:51
care. So, we created this Working Moms Dashboard, and I really encourage you all to scan that QR code and play around with it. We looked at a county-by-county level data here that looks at labor force participation
rates of moms with kids under 6 and moms with kids under 18 compared to all women across Arkansas. That's that half-blue circles that you can kind of see on the pop-out box. We also, at the bottom of that pop-out box, looked at the percent of the median female salary spent on one infant in child care, and those are averages county by county. So you can look at your districts, see what counties are affected, and how much women and families are paying for child care there. So it's an interactive dashboard.
So one survey item that we asked women is if they could rank order changes that they would like to see to their current child care arrangement from most preferred to least preferred. And across the board, a 10% price reduction was the most frequently identified first choice among urban women, among rural women, college educated, non-college educated women. And all across the board, the most common first choice was 10% price reduction.
And this choice was consistently preferred over other options that we asked, including improved quality of child care, extended hours, or a more convenient location. So in general, it seemed that the women we talked to were pleased about, you know, or accepted the quality of care that their children were getting, but still cost remained a barrier and a challenge for them. Here's a couple other quotes from women that we talked to. Again, I don't really know why I work.
My entire paycheck is going to child care. Another working mom said, we spend $2,200 a month in daycare, and that's a mortgage payment. That's beyond a mortgage payment for a lot of people. Interestingly, we were conducting our survey and doing these interviews about the time that the voucher assistant program ended last fall. And so that came up quite a bit in our conversations that we had with working moms. The cost of child care was particularly salient since many families with the SRA vouchers were trying to figure out how to pay the new copay that the state system required.
We heard from one child care center who told us that she lost 20 families pretty much overnight when the copay system was implemented. And for her center, these weren't little, little kids. These were more elementary-aged children who are now riding the school bus as latchkey kids rather than being in a supervised program with her center. At the time of our conversation, again, this was last fall, probably October, November, She had already mentioned having to lay off multiple staff members and was fearful that she would have to lay off more.
So we also look at paid leave for women across our state. 20% of the women in our study returned to work less than six weeks after birth, which was before medically recommended. Many reported having no paid leave or only partial wage replacement. And we know that these outcomes tie to maternal health outcomes after the birth of a child. And so we need to do better for paid leave for moms to have incentives to recover fully after giving birth before they have to go back to work.
But many of the moms that we talked to told us they could not afford to take that much leave from work and not pay the bills and stay home. So it was a hard decision that they had to make. So we looked here at maternity leave length by different employer supports, including the time of leave that they got, if it was paid leave, protected leave, unpaid leave, and not protected. And from our survey data analysis, we concluded that in general, having some paid leave, even if it wasn't the full 12 weeks or a full six weeks, having even just some paid leave increased the likelihood of a mother taking more than six weeks of maternity leave and still returning to work.
So they didn't quit their jobs and just stay home. They were more likely to come back to work. We also know that there's an invisible mental load that many working moms hold between juggling work responsibilities and family caregiving responsibilities. One mom said, I don't own a single hour in my day. So we heard that a lot. I'm going to try and see if I can play this video. We interviewed several working moms from all across Arkansas. This is Sarah. She's from
Monticello, Arkansas, and we heard a little bit about her story. I hope that it will play, but if not, we have several of these videos on our website, and I encourage you to hear from the perspective of Working Moms Across Arkansas, but let's give it a try.
Speaker 28
16:18
I don't think you all can't hear that right
Maddy Sanjuanan
Unverified
16:21
okay well we'll skip over that but encourage you all
in the QR code to listen to Sarah's story Sarah told us she was one of the ones that said all I wish for is more time with my kids she's a single mom of two boys she works full-time and one of the thing she talked about too was no one prepared her for the amount of sick days she would have to take for her job for her kids them being sick so often and she she mentioned that when she was a kid and she was sick she would go stay at her grandma's house for the day so her mom could continue going
to work but for her her mom still works full-time in pine bluff at the hospital and she is unavailable to really help out with child care and so Sarah said she's all tapped out from her vacation and her sick leave she also picks up you know side jobs cleaning houses cleaning the local church cleaning office buildings to help make up ends meet and have just extra spending money for her and her kids she is one of the ones that also talked about the copay implementation she had
about three days notice to come up with her copay for her kids. And she talked about the challenge of that being a week that she wasn't going to get paid. And she had to kind of scrounge, clean some extra houses to find and come up with the money. And even amongst all of that, she is so joyful, loves being a mom, loves her life and wouldn't have it any other way. And so many Arkansas moms that we talked to had that perspective they are making it work and they are holding it all together
as we named the report after that but there it it is a bit of a struggle for them so that's just a recap of her story but encourage you to listen to it in her own words if you have some time and so finally our conclusions from this report is really that Arkansas moms are engaged in the workforce, whether they want to be or need to be to provide for their families. But they really requested and needed more flexibility and support to make all of that happen. Employers have a big
role to play in this. They have a lot of responsibility and they don't have to start from scratch. It can be intimidating to come up with policies that support working moms, but just they have to start and realize that, you know, their workforce is dependent upon it. And then moms are trying to work and want to work, but they're having to make impossible choices based on their financial circumstances. And so here is the QR code that has the full report, the one pager that we have. It also has that interactive dashboard, and it has the video testimonials of
women across Arkansas. And so with that, thank you for the opportunity. I don't know if we have time for questions but I will leave some of my cards and share my email if anyone has questions or wants to learn more about our report I'm happy to present that to you happy to bring you be a resource for you if you have questions about policy recommendations or anything of that we're here to be supportive of you and a resource thank you so much thank you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
19:42
Maddie and I do think we have
several times several minutes for questions if anybody has any questions Representative Painter thank
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
19:53
you madam chair and appreciate the report I can tell you my wife said the exact same comment why am I when we found out we were gonna have Audra here and she immediately said you know why don't I gonna turn my check over to having childcare when I can just stay home and luckily we're blessed we were able to do that in your report on the labor force participation graph
i think it's slide four or five what does that cause the spike from 23 to 24 do you know you know that's a that's a
Maddy Sanjuanan
Unverified
20:25
good question i don't know specifically what caused that spike um because it is pretty steep there is another steep spike between 16 and 17 right um and i'll have to look at that but I don't know off the top of my head what that's from oh that's fine and I'll get your card and yeah
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
20:40
I can share an email I'm just curious that's all yeah happy to happy to find out
Speaker 28
20:45
and I'll follow back up thank you thank you
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
20:49
madam chair representative Brown thank you madam chair um I had a couple of questions on the slide that says 27 estimated average annual cost of care for
One infant plus one toddler in Arkansas is $17,500. And that is 27% of the median family income. So when you're saying family, is that a two-parent household?
Yes. Okay. And I've got a couple little ones. Sure. Nothing earth-shattering. When
they said that they needed more flexibility. Is that kind of, can you give some examples like maybe flexibility in hours or arrival time
Speaker 28
21:52
or maybe taking a big break in the middle of the day or what did they need? Yes, great question. A lot of that is around their kids' schedules. So we talked to a lot of women that actually took jobs in their kids' school districts. We see that a lot just because the hours matched up their kids' schedules better, even if, and they said, they don't pay as well. You know, I could get a better job elsewhere, but it matched my routine, my day-to-day, my kid drop-off, my kid pickup. So those kinds of things are workplace supports that we've seen in corporate settings, allowing, you know, flexible start, pickup, drop-off times, exactly as you said, a longer lunch.
And really just, you know, if a mom needs to take her kid to the doctor, you know, being flexible on being able to leave work and come back and arrange care for that. So just balancing the needs of taking care of their kids throughout the day and being at work. And obviously that does not apply to every single industry. I think health care is a little bit more challenging in that role sometimes, or certain industries are a little bit more challenging to figure
Maddy Sanjuanan
Unverified
22:58
that out. but we are really trying to encourage businesses to be creative and innovative in that
Speaker 28
23:03
and allow women, moms, and working dads as well to be able to have some flexibility in that. I was just
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
23:13
thinking, trying to relate this to myself when I was a single mom. I went back
to college, and my son was 13 or 14 at the time, But he'd already had three concussions just bouncing around the neighborhood on his bicycle, so I knew I had to have insurance. So in order to keep my insurance, I had to work a two-thirds schedule,
which I believe was 26 hours a week, and then I was going to college full-time. So, you know, I did a split shift. I had to be there at 4.30 in the morning and then go over to campus all day and then go back at night. You know, you make a lot of sacrifices like that just so you can provide. But, you know, we have to commend our mothers for doing what they do to be able to improve their lives and so they can eventually improve their children's lives, particularly the single moms.
There was a point to my question, and I kind of lost it. but I do have another, but that's just a, I was just trying to think about all of this, you know, and relate to it personally. But, um, ages, I made notes at our last meeting and I have, didn't bring them with me and I don't remember them. Do you know the ages that the SRA funds support versus the ABC funds? The difference? I don't know that off the top of my head. I know there's two different age groups. There's, there's different, uh, characteristics of the
two programs and um well thank you and i
Speaker 28
24:52
will add to that too you know one of the things that we do at the women's foundation we work heavily with excel by eight another
Maddy Sanjuanan
Unverified
25:01
organization that really does a lot in child care policy maternal health policy they started we um worked with the former governor asa hutchinson on the women's commission in 2022 and many of our findings from that report also talked about child care and the impacts of women, especially through the pandemic.
After that report was released, Excel by Eight created a business coalition that really includes chambers, different industries from all across the state to talk about child care challenges and how the business industry can step up and support our working families. And that has been excellent. It's led by former chief of staff, Allison Williams, and she has done a phenomenal job at recruiting members and talking about the challenges. I do know from one of our previous meetings that we had,
we met with the Port of Lutterock, and that was one of the biggest things that they cited for recruiting new companies is the child care challenges and the lack of on-site child care nearby that their families, working families, and employers would need. And so we really look at this challenge from a personal perspective of how it affects working families and single moms, but also how it affects our state on an economic development level and our ability to compete with other states.
Speaker 28
26:20
We have such a fantastic state here to bring new business to, low cost of living, so many wonderful, wonderful components to starting business here. But child care continues to be a challenge that keeps employers from deciding to plant roots here. And so we really think of it from multiple perspectives.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
26:42
I would like to just add something that I'm working on finding out the details
of. We had another meeting earlier this week about workforce.
And I brought up the question of education because I heard a word that they pay for daycare. So any, you know, we need to get the word out to parents, mothers who are particularly interested in increasing their skill level to be in touch with the Department of Commerce because there are daycare, they do pay for daycare for people who want to increase their skills. So that might be an option for some people, and I'm just encouraging people to look into that, and I'm getting more data on it as soon as I can.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
27:30
Thank you. Thank you so much. Are there any other questions? Then you can go and pick up your own children. Thank you so much. And thank you for everything you're doing and the Women's Foundation is doing. They did great work, Excel by Eight as well. And thank you guys so much. It's going to take more than the state to deal with this issue, obviously. It's going to take some public-private partnerships.
So thank you very much for everything you guys are doing.
Maddy Sanjuanan
Unverified
28:01
We appreciate you coming. Thank you so much appreciate the time and the opportunity thank you.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
28:10
And with that we'll have the department come up and give us a quick update on some things that they're doing.
Speaker 62
28:32
Good afternoon, Stacey Smith, Deputy Commissioner with the Department of
Speaker 64
28:38
Ed. Good afternoon, you all. Ashlyn Abney, Education Division Director for the Office of Early Childhood.
Speaker 65
28:44
Thank you guys very much. Thank you. Just with a quick update in terms of some questions that were sent over to us, we
Speaker 67
28:52
had kind of three questions that were sent prior. One was kind of an update on a dashboard that we're working on at the department to increase transparency, so we'll talk about that a little bit.
update on the transition to class and where we are with that in the state and then some questions around some awards that came out from the Office of Educational Policy so we'll kind of hit on those those three topics so so first when we first came to you guys last January with changes around SRA and numbers one of the things that really quickly became aware is we were having a very difficult time pulling accurate data from our current data systems we
were having to go in and put in tickets and to try to get those exact numbers so miss Abney has been working very closely with our IT team to try to create some internal dashboards that we could then publicly present and be able to get data much quicker so I'm gonna let her tell you about some of the different reports and dashboards that we're currently working on they're not done yet but they are in the process
Speaker 68
29:58
and are getting very close yes thank you and so actually these just went live uh last week so
Speaker 64
30:03
our team no not public but not playing these are internal ones but uh for our
own team uh they went to live in in terms of let me let me make sure i'm saying that right when i say in terms live like they can get in there they can play around with it they can look at different uh trends that might be happening they can change the numbers around to see what forecasting would be those kinds of things and so we're just in the brand new process of being able to do that but the three that they are using the most in the last just few days one is an enrollment dashboard where they can look and see how many children are enrolled in programs that
accept school readiness assistance funding and so that is helpful because we can like stacy said we can get back to you all how many children do we have in a particular age bracket so that we can then know how much money or funding that we are using for like infant and toddlers as opposed to preschool and so that is helpful for us to look at the other one is application monitoring dashboard it helps us to look at how many applications that we are receiving from families what the
counties that they're coming from the areas of the state so that is helpful for us and then another one that we're keeping a close eye on is the participant monitoring dashboard that lets us know how many providers are currently accepting SRA at their centers so we're trying to watch that because as you all know we've gotten questions about providers no longer being interested potentially in taking SRA funds and so we're just trying to watch that so I think as we start
learning more about the dashboards and how to use them internally how to use them then we will be able to make cleaner decisions we'll be able to get information out faster and so I think it will be helpful for us so we're excited to have these dashboards come online we have some other ones that are in the process of being tested and glad to tell you about those later and once we know that they're actually going to be able to be used internally. Sure so the next question that came to
us was about class transition and so we are currently still proceeding with the class and we are excited that the number of participants that have completed their class observations has grown. We are currently getting ready probably within the next couple of weeks to release class transition funding out to providers so I think that that will be some great news. Just want to remind you that that funding is coming from the pdg or the preschool block grant that we got
that's a systems building grant so that's been a little bit different than the grants in the past so it the grant does not translate directly to direct services that's why we are using some of that funding to just help providers who have completed at least one class observation throughout the beginning of the transition into class, and so we're excited for that to happen. The other one that you all were interested in were the OEP awards.
That is totally separate from OEC awards. Information and data was shared with OEP, and so they did put out some awards based on class scores. I just want to remind you all, we're still in the pilot process of that, And so we will be watching the class scores as they come in and as we make progress towards that. But it's totally separate. The OEP awards are different from what we are doing in
Speaker 64
33:57
what you all had mostly on your mind.
The other thing that I wanted to tell you about while I had the opportunity is we are getting ready to transition over to a new system, as you all know, in terms of our ACEs going to S4HANA. And so we did want to let you know that we've noticed of all the providers that there will be a drag in time potentially with their payments. So they're somewhat used to this in the summertime. We have finishing up one fiscal year, moving into another fiscal year.
But we anticipate that there will be a little bit more of a delay potentially in their payments because we're also transitioning to a new system as well. So I wanted to make you all aware of that. In case you've got any calls about it, you would know what is happening there. We will.
Speaker 72
34:48
I think it would be helpful, too, if we could send the timelines that we've sent out that we're
Speaker 67
34:53
sharing with providers about when it'll be down so that you guys, if you get a call about it, you at least have those dates and know. But that's something that we are trying to communicate ahead of time
so folks realize that it's coming. If you'll just share that with staff, then we'll make sure everybody gets it. Thank you. Yes, we'll make sure and have that for you. Another question Representative Mayberry asked ahead of time that I think some of you might have heard too was questions around audits with Head Start and requirements around that. And that's something that we're going to dig into a little bit more. I don't know if we were able to answer her question at the beginning of this. There are some guidelines for federal requirements with audits for people taking SRA funds. And then we think on top of that we've probably layered some program requirements.
So we're going to go back and look at that to see what is a
Speaker 72
35:43
state requirement, what is in rules, what is in policy, what
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
35:49
is federally required, and see if there's some things there that we can alleviate. Do we know where the students are that were in Head Start that the state was
in charge of? What's happened to those state Head Start kids that
Speaker 63
36:01
we closed out? Yes, ma'am. I'm thinking you're talking about the early Head Start. Early Head Start, yes.
Speaker 64
36:06
Okay. Yes, ma'am. Those guys were able to stay at the facilities that they were already currently in, to my knowledge.
We didn't have anyone that had to move, but I'll double-check on that for you. The last that I knew, they were still in their facility. Great.
Speaker 67
36:23
Yes, ma'am. Great. Just something else, too, that comes up frequently is where we are on the market rate survey and our cost analysis. So we're still working with the Office of State Procurement. In that process, they're in the middle of, I think, starting interviews. And so hopefully that will be awarded soon. And, again, getting to that accurate cost of what it costs for it, that is a report that we're waiting on.
Speaker 72
36:47
But that is in the current process of still
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
36:54
going through the process. Perfect. Thank
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
37:00
you. Representative Painter. Thank you, Madam Chair. on the disruption of the payments so I'm sure you probably heard I'm probably I know one provider that's probably reached out to you is concerned especially in my district enrolled you know they operate month-to-month and it's a very very poor area are those payments when they're delayed are they gonna be like a big
lump sum when they start back because I'm being told it could be there being one provider calls that it could be june to mid-july which that's quite a bit to be withheld funds and if that's the case is it going to be a one lump sum or then you're going
Speaker 64
37:41
to spread out um that's a great question my understanding is that it so here's some dates just so that we're talking apples to apples um june 26th would be the last day that they can put in their sra payment
to have it processed june 30th is when the payments will stop and then from july 1 to 13 to your point and we do understand that that is a that's quite a bit of time for a provider they can continue billing but there won't be any processing of the payments my understanding to answer your question is once it comes back live we're thinking around july 14th or so that they would receive any monies that were owed to them in the period that was shut down.
So I think it would be so wise to encourage them to continue to bill so that that information is in the system ready to go for payment once it comes back up. And I
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
38:37
know you guys said you guys were going to give us a timeline, but I know there's certain providers from my district watching, and so I just wanted to make sure they heard that on the record and got those
Speaker 64
38:48
dates for themselves. Yes, sir. We've sent that out to them. We started messaging it out in May, and then we've sent it out again this week just to keep in front of them so that they would have the date.
Speaker 34
38:59
So we'll keep doing that as well. I'm sure, but you
Speaker 40
39:03
probably have heard some concerns with that. Yes, sir. We have. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you, Madam Chair, for
Speaker 3
39:29
the latitude. Representative Walker. Thank you, Madam Chair. What seat are you in?
Speaker 68
40:10
like a tricky day with technology today, happens to the best of us.
Representative Steven Walker
Unverified
40:18
thank you madam chair since this microphone works um so my question is about an early childhood special education funding um and i know you guys weren't prepared to to talk about it so if this
is information you have to get me later that'll be fine um the the so from my understanding it has been a long time since that fund's been looked at or increased inflation has really deteriorated what what the the group that works with early childhood special education is able to do with that fund i think um staffing has became less over time because of um inflation taken away from the funding um it's and the reason i wanted to bring it up because it's a big deal in our
rural areas where we don't have a lot of help for these kids um and so the early childhood special education with learns targeting the third grade level and trying and and holding kids back that aren't on grade level and we've got this fund out here the early childhood special education to where it helps it helps identify these kids before they get to third grade or kindergarten and tries to get them on level as they go into kindergarten and it helps parents that don't have
the resources that because poverty is a big deal in my district and these parents they don't have the resources they're able to purchase these resources work with the parents and get them on grade level and so i guess my question is um have we looked at at what all this fund's able to do trying to where it should be at financially to keep it going because i don't i don't want it to collapse over the next few years and i'm and i'm some of the things i've been hearing lately
show that that could be coming if we're not proactive and i'm just curious if you have thoughts on that or if you need to get that information later that's
Speaker 67
42:36
fine too. So I really think you're talking about the part b elements of it and then the state allocations where the state has put in money for special education for early services so I think if you'll let me go back and get with Dr. Adams with special education and Matt Sewell and let me look at those funds there's always a need I mean you know this and and a couple years ago actually money was put in
by the legislature for that specific purpose a lot of times this is where you'll see school districts working closely with their public schools and providing services for special education and supports but when you start looking at your part b's and part c's in terms of federal funds and the amounts there there there's a limit and there's formulas that drive the amounts and where that gets put out to and who gets that so let me go back and get with Dr. Adams and Matt Sewell and circle back with you and maybe even get some specific scenarios so we can really kind of
dive in and determine which pot of
Representative Steven Walker
Unverified
43:39
money okay which program that'll be perfect and um like I said i just with us putting such an emphasis on holding kids back at a third grade level i know we can't solve all the problems out there but i want to do what we are capable of doing and try to identify kids as early as possible so we might
Speaker 95
44:00
be able to make the difference on whether
Speaker 62
44:03
they're held back or they're able to move on ahead of time you're speaking the
Speaker 67
44:08
language of sorry of early intervention right getting to kids sooner than later and so that was the whole
premise of learns and all the interventions and supports being put in in kindergarten first and second grade that intervention part of that so we're happy to go back and look at that
Speaker 72
44:24
and see if there's some adjustments we need to make and get with you directly all
Speaker 96
44:30
right thank you thank you madam chair representative Brown
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
44:38
thank you madam chair we had a it was
called to my attention that in the news this week one of the child care centers in my district is confronted with owing over a thousand dollars that they have to repay because they were overpaid and it sounded to me like well it looks like it's SRA funds do you have any idea why the overpayment I know that throws I certainly don't like to get done
for something that wasn't my mistake but do you have a response to that concern I don't know if you heard the news report
Speaker 64
45:27
or not yes ma'am I did hear the news report and our office is reviewing that that particular situation is under an appeal right now and so I'm I'm not at liberty to talk about it right now but yes ma'am we are aware of it looking into it thank you yes ma'am thank you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
45:46
I want to go back just a minute to first of all I want to say thank you for the
dashboard because I I've heard over and over again how transparency and and and accountability is so important so thank you for that and please keep us posted on on what's part of those dashboards or a dashboard, was it several dashboards? Yes, ma'am. Okay, and how we can get that information back out. I do want to go back just a minute about just an update on the class pilot. There were some questions about where we are there.
There are several folks that had not gotten their two observations maybe or what's happening with that information as well. So obviously OEC or OEP got some of that data. What data is available for FOIA and what is not as part of this pilot? I think that the folks that were concerned that talked to me were under the impression that it was a pilot,
it was a learning opportunity, that data was not going to be used for anything and that except for learning and that they weren't going to be held accountable
Speaker 67
47:07
for that particularly right so the department's not using that information to determine current quality payments rates anything however it's I mean it's foible information data sharing agreements it's information that we will share out someone asked for it and so that was the case OEP does something
similar with k-12 with with k-12 testing data they do their own awards by regions i think they were trying to mimic something similar in the early childhood space i think it was something that they were looking at as a positive trying to identify people who were doing good
Speaker 72
47:44
work again that was something that they did right um so anything any data that you have is foible basically It
Speaker 67
47:52
doesn't tie back to individual students, right? So, like, when we're talking about even K-12 Atlas data,
we're going to have to publicly share data, right? But
Speaker 72
48:01
it doesn't necessarily go back and say, this student scored this. We're not going to really sit down. That's why we have in
Speaker 101
48:08
size amounts. No, but schools, but what the schools
Speaker 67
48:12
rankings and those kinds of things? Yeah, but when we're talking about a rating for using this class tool, that's information that we would share if asked in a data request for that.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
48:21
Okay, I think that's the concern. I think that one of the statements from the very beginning said that that data would not be shared.
And if that changed, then maybe we need to get back to those folks and just let them know that. That would be helpful. Yeah, we would absolutely do that. And then my question is,
because I'm in OEP's district, who would I talk to about that? I mean, I
Speaker 60
48:49
would assume their director. Yeah, okay, perfect. Yeah, and
Speaker 92
48:52
again, we work closely with them for multiple things, and again, I think
Speaker 67
48:57
this is something they were doing to try to recognize people they think were on the front end, out going and doing.
Speaker 72
49:05
I think other folks are looking at that as being something like people
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
49:10
were caught surprised by it, and so we understand that. I agree. I think they do wonderful work, and I love all of them,
and I do want to recognize that I'm sure that's what happened, but I do want to make sure that they hear the concerns about those folks who felt ineligible to even be, you know, to be a part of that. I think
that's fair. I think they would want to know. Yeah, I would think so, too. I would think so, too.
Speaker 62
49:36
And in terms of the number of class observations and funding, Ashley, you want to
Speaker 64
49:42
talk to that? Yeah, so something we're very excited about, we are going to have what we call the QRIS, or the Quality Rating Improvement System. We have a workshop webinar that we're going to do on June the 23rd. And so if you all can help us with getting that information out to the providers, it's another thing that we've communicated already from our office. But we are very interested in providers and what they think about for the QRIS as we start developing it.
class will be a part of it, but I think that there's some flexibility in terms of the things that you're bringing up, like what exactly do we do with those scores? How does it fall within the overall QRIS system? And so we are excited to share with them some ideas that we have. Nothing is set in stone. So if they want to join that webinar, they can find that information on our website. We're excited to have already, we think, hundreds of participants that have registered for So we will have a continuing conversation with everyone about QRIS and very much interested in building this system together with providers, with parents.
We have plans for doing parent focus groups as well to gather their information on what they would like to see as far as also with stakeholders and then our office as well. So a true partnership, hopefully, that's going around in making sure that we are building something that is reasonable and realistic and something that is obtainable for providers to do but also gives parents the information that they need. So we're very excited about that. The funding piece of that we are hoping will come later down the road, and we will figure that part out together as well.
So we're excited about that. So that kicks off June the 23rd. june 23rd
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
51:36
yes ma'am on the website yes ma'am perfect and one more question sure um and that is an update on the local leads the the um uh recompete and where we are and what's going on with the local leads if you have that information if not we can do that the next
Speaker 64
51:56
meeting now i've got that preliminary information for you so we did do the recompete uh we will now starting july
first we will have 23 local leads all the counties will be covered we had some shifting going on because we had some of our current local leads decided not to continue on so we did have some shifting but not major shifting so it'll still for a provider we're hoping feel similar to them because their local lead will still be in their surrounding catchment area so we're excited about the work that the local leads will continue to do in their communities and in their catchment
areas. We are partnering also with them as well with the QRIS and we really need to, I think I've shared this before, we needed to work on our communication both internal and external and so we're doing some work with that around our local leads to make sure that we're staying in lockstep and aligned with our local leads and then our local leads out to their catchment areas. So I'm excited about how that's going to look coming up this next year
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
53:02
great so this recompete did their their job description change no ma'am so they're doing
Speaker 67
53:08
basically the same thing yes ma'am yes they were doing before great wonderful so and again that was a part of our PDG grant to regarding systems building being able to leverage those funds and being able to help support and again get our local leads programs off the ground really running going strong but again that pdg grant was all about how we're building systems what's our transparencies so again our dashboards the local leads aspect building our systems around class is how we've leveraged that funding and when you talk
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
53:43
about the pdg grants were we able to go back and look at the the folks that we had contracted that we cut drastically when the CBD or the, not CBD, the grants, CBDF grants were, were cut. So while we, so some of those contractors, some of, some of those programs that were cut drastically, or are the local leads taking on those responsibilities or where are we
Speaker 64
54:13
on, on PD? I understand what you're talking about. So I think what you're referring to is with the CCDF back in the late fall. We had some adjustments that needed to be made in terms of the professional development and the grants that we had. So similarly to the recompete with the local leads, we also had the reset for the grant, the grantees. So they were able to rewrite for different professional developments that they wanted to provide.
What we did there, Representative Garner, is we really took a look at what was absolutely needed. So like what training topics were absolutely needed and are required by CCDF and started building out from there the different trainings that we will have this year. So fortunately, we were not able to keep all of the training topics that were there, but we have everything that was essential and needed covered for this coming up year. So we're excited about that. Great. We did that also in tandem with providers and questioned them, what is it that you want, what is it that you need, and so that information was helpful.
And then a thing that I thought about that we haven't mentioned, but I'm excited about it, is we have started a stakeholder group, or we're calling it the PDG Partners Group, where we have every type of facility covered. we have a spokesperson we had our kickoff meeting this past week where we brought in providers to talk to us about all of our pdg activities to get feedback from them i'm looking forward to keeping that team intact as we move forward just asking them broader questions about oec as well just in
the effort to continue the transparency continue being able to talk back and forth with everyone in terms of where we want early childhood education to be in the state of Arkansas. So I'm excited about
Speaker 64
56:18
How did you decide? It was internal from mostly my team, but then also from local leads that we had heard from that knew about the people in their catchment areas, and then we offered out to the individuals.
We had some that were just too busy to participate and others that said yes, and then that's how we formulated the final group that came. And this is for PD specifically? Yes, ma'am. We started it for that, but what we learned in the meeting that we had with them last week that there's so many more ideas just outside of the PDG activities. So I talked to them about would you all be interested and have the capacity to make this more than just the PDG activities. So while we're focused on that right now,
because, as you know, our PDG is through December of this year. We've talked already about going on past December and being able to have them as our immediate people that we can get feedback from. Great. Great. Sounds wonderful. I'm excited about it, too. Do you all have
Speaker 68
57:18
anything else you need us to know? No, ma'am. Well, I so appreciate you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
57:27
guys coming and leaving another meeting, and I know you've got another one to go to. So thank you very much for your help.
Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you. And with that, is there any other business? Seeing no other business, this meeting is adjourned.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of a Motion to Approve the March 19, 2026, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Presentation of Holding It All Together: Working Moms and Childcare in Arkansas Report [Exhibits C1-C3]
D. Update on Early Childhood Education from the Arkansas Department of Education
E. Other Business
F. Adjournment
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 9
Maddie San
Unverified
Maddy Sanjuanan
Unverified
Speaker 28
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Speaker 62
Speaker 64
Speaker 65
Speaker 67
Speaker 68
Speaker 70
Speaker 72
Speaker 63
Speaker 34
Speaker 40
Speaker 3
Speaker 86
Speaker 87
Representative Steven Walker
Unverified
Speaker 95
Speaker 96
Speaker 101
Speaker 60
Speaker 92
Speaker 74