Arkansas Office of Early Childhood Strategic Plan

Welcome to the Arkansas Office of Early Childhood Strategic Plan. This web page introduces our strategic plan to create a unified early childhood system in Arkansas. In this plan, we aim to address the needs of children, families, providers, and communities by working together with community members.

Vision and Mission

Vision:
Our vision is what we hope for the future. Arkansas’s Early Childhood System will meet the needs of every child, family, provider, and community so that everyone can flourish.

Mission:
Our mission is our main goal. We work with community members to make sure all Arkansas children and families can access high quality early childhood programs. We support the growth of the early childhood workforce, services, and support.

Arkansas Kindergarten Readiness

Arkansas' Foundation for Kindergarten Readines: Kindergarten readiness will be measured by a Department of Education state approved assessment aligned with the Early Learning Standards in Arkansas.

Kindergarten readiness includes the following domains:

  • Physical health, well-being and motor skills
  • Social-emotional development including self-regulation and relationships with peers and adults
  • Language and literacy development including language understanding, emergent literacy and early writing
  • Cognition and general knowledge including math, science, and problem solving
  • Approaches to learning including initiative, attentiveness, persistence and play.
  • Kindergarten ready children have the social, emotional, and academic knowledge, skills and behaviors for school success and lifelong learning.
  • Kindergarten readiness occurs when families, schools and communities support the healthy foundation of children’s growth, so they are successful in school and in life.

Purpose and Key Components

The main purpose of this plan is to show how Arkansas will ensure every child and family can access high-quality early childhood education and care with the help of communities.

Objectives:
Objectives are broader goals that guide our work and match our vision and mission.
  • Increase Access to Early Childhood Programs
  • Enhance Quality of Programs and Services
  • Strengthen quality, service, and support while expanding and refining infrastructure and workforce
  • Transition and update IT systems
  • Refine and build communications
  • Strategies:
    Strategies are the methods we use to reach our objectives. They are detailed in this plan by the objective they support.

    Activities:
    Activities are the specific tasks we need to complete to carry out our strategies. These tasks are organized by the objective and strategy they support and include timelines, responsibilities, and resources needed.