Sylvan Hills Learning Center

🎉 We Did It!

Today, Arkansas providers, families, and advocates proved what can happen when people come together and refuse to give up.

After weeks of uncertainty, sleepless nights, and nonstop collaboration, the voices of those who care for and depend on childcare were finally heard.

The Arkansas Department of Education has accepted nearly all the recommendations brought forward by the Early Childhood Task Force, ensuring that families, providers, and children will have the stability they’ve been desperately waiting for.

This victory belongs to every single person who:
💪 Showed up to meetings and rallies
💬 Sent emails, made calls, and shared posts
🤝 Spent nights and weekends crunching numbers and crafting solutions
💗 Kept showing up for Arkansas families, even when it felt like no one was listening

We’ve still got more work ahead but today, we celebrate.
Because together, we showed what’s possible when we refuse to let children, families, and early educators be left behind.

This is what advocacy looks like.
This is what heart looks like.
This is what hope looks like.

✨ We did it! And we did it together!

⏰ Still No Answers - Families Deserve Better

It’s Monday morning, and providers across Arkansas are doing what they always do…showing up.
Doors are open, children are being welcomed, and classrooms are filled with laughter and learning.

But beneath the surface, anxiety is building.

Providers are doing their best to reassure families, but without answers, there are no promises left to give.
Parents can’t wait until the last minute to figure out their childcare situation. Many have already had to make heartbreaking decisions; pulling their children from programs they love, searching for other options, or preparing to leave the workforce altogether.

This didn’t have to happen.

The lack of planning, transparency, and communication from the Arkansas Department of Education has left both families and providers stranded, again.

We’ve had meeting after meeting. Providers have spent countless nights and weekends developing solutions, running numbers, and doing the job the state should have done weeks ago.

Meanwhile, ADE has allowed the clock to run out.
And now, families are paying the price for their inaction.

This isn’t leadership.
It’s irresponsibility and it’s putting real people in impossible situations.

Arkansas families deserve better than this.



Sarah Huckabee Sanders

📣 CALL TO ACTION: SEND AN EMAIL TODAY!

https://act.communitychangeaction.org/a/release-child-care-rates?fbclid=IwZnRzaANy6cxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHkML8DbTrz6gy-7Xo7Tg9MkbhXzwTwaihqQzFPeOqzQzNj1g08P4n5nn7D0t_aem_3ZyrT9dm_mVrXGQPsRLudA

We have worked tirelessly, late nights, early mornings, countless meetings, believing that transparency and collaboration with the Arkansas Department of Education would lead to real solutions.

Yet here we are, once again, left waiting.
The information that was promised to us by ADE has not been provided, and the task force, the Commission, providers, and families across the state are now left in limbo because of it.

We are disappointed.
We are frustrated.
And we are asking for accountability.

This delay impacts real families, real children, and real programs who cannot afford another day of uncertainty.

💥 Take two minutes to make your voice heard.
Click below to send an email to ADE leadership and Governor Sanders to let them know how this lack of follow-through affects you, your staff, your families, and your community.

We deserve better communication. We deserve transparency. We deserve action.

👉

It’s hard to wake up and enjoy a weekend not knowing what Monday will bring.
Directors can’t plan budgets.
Directors can’t forecast whether they can stay open one more month . Providers can’t decide if they can take one more voucher child, one more foster child, one more family who can’t afford the market rate.

What a heartbreaking place to be — when doing the right thing might mean closing your doors.

And this isn’t just about providers. Many of those same families are about to lose their SNAP benefits too. They won’t just lose childcare — they’ll lose their stability, their safety net, and their ability to put food on the table.

What a terrible way to start the month of gratitude.

But even in this, we stand together.
Because Arkansas’s children deserve better.
And we will keep showing up — day after day — until they get it.

🎢 THIS IS IT

The ride stops today.

For the past six weeks, we’ve all been strapped into the same rollercoaster…parents, providers, teachers, and children…climbing, dropping, twisting, and holding on for dear life while decisions far above us determined where we would land.

It’s been a ride full of panic, sleepless nights, and stomach-turning uncertainty. We’ve shouted from the top of every hill, hoping someone in power would hear the cries of families and providers who just want to keep Arkansas moving forward.

But today, the rollercoaster comes to a halt.

When the brakes hit, there are only two possible outcomes:
Either we crash off the tracks, or we get off shaken and exhausted, but still standing.

There are no more days left after today. No more countdowns. No more delays. This is the moment when the Arkansas Department of Education and state leaders decide what happens next.

Providers have spent every ounce of energy holding this together…bailing water, patching the holes, and offering real solutions. Families have fought alongside them, trusting that someone at the top would finally step in.

The question now is whether they will.

Because this isn’t just about funding or formulas. It’s about people. It’s about children, parents, and teachers who have been along for this wild ride and are just hoping for a safe landing.

🎢 The rollercoaster stops today.
Let’s hope we step off in one piece.



Sarah Huckabee Sanders

How is child care affecting you?

🎯 Protect What Builds Tomorrow
4 MORE DAYS BEFORE THE FUTURE BREAKS

Arkansas leaders are planning to spend more than $800 MILLION on a new prison in Franklin County.
Meanwhile… they are choosing not to invest even a tenth of that amount into early childhood education, the very thing proven to reduce incarceration and strengthen our economy long-term.

It’s backwards. It’s wasteful. It’s preventable.

📌 We know this to be true:
Every dollar invested in high-quality early learning saves approximately $9 by reducing crime, improving education outcomes, and building a stronger workforce.

So why would we build more prison beds
instead of building up our children?

Children in our classrooms today will one day be:
✅ our nurses
✅ our welders
✅ our entrepreneurs
✅ our taxpayers
✅ our future

But we only have 4 more days before thousands of Arkansas kids lose access to the safe, stable learning environments that set them up for success.
4 days before the foundation starts to crack.

Arkansas doesn’t need another prison.
Arkansas needs smarter priorities.

We can protect the future workforce
or we can pay for the consequences later.

👉 Call Governor Sanders.
👉 Email your legislators.
👉 Share this post.

Invest in children now
or invest in prisons later.

The choice is still ours…
but not for long. 🧱⏳



Sarah Huckabee Sanders

🚨 5 DAYS LEFT - CHILDCARE CODE RED 🚨

Picture this:
A child is rushed into an emergency room.
Alarms are blaring.
A red light flashes overhead.
Monitors beep louder and faster as the situation becomes more unstable.

Doctors and nurses don’t debate whether it’s urgent.
They don’t schedule a meeting for next week.
They act. Immediately. Because that child’s future depends on it.

Now imagine that child is Arkansas’ entire childcare system.

Right now the monitors are screaming:

📉 Infant rooms closing
📉 Educators laid off
📉 Families losing care
📉 Parents on the brink of losing their jobs

The crisis is already in the trauma bay.

And yet…
The people holding the tools to save it are waiting in the hallway, watching the condition worsen, debating whether they should step in.

Providers, however?
We’re already in the room.

We’re the ones with our gloves on,
hands on the chest,
keeping the heartbeat going while the clock ticks down.

The task force is already convening to do its job. They aren’t waiting for permission to administer life saving measures.

🩺 Childcare is the pulse of Arkansas’ workforce
🩺 Parents are the lungs, keeping our economy breathing
🩺 This system is a living patient and it’s crashing

And in 5 days, if nothing changes?

The heartbeat flatlines.
Families lose access.
Parents lose livelihoods.
Businesses lose workers.
Communities lose stability.

This is not a future threat.
This is an emergency happening in real time.

Governor Sanders,
The code has been called.
Authorize the treatment.
Let us stabilize the system before it’s too late.

📣 Call. Email. Share.
Every action now is a shock to the system,
a chance to bring this patient back.

⏱️ 5 days to save childcare in Arkansas.
There’s still time.
But the monitor is beeping faster.

⚠️ LIGHTS OUT AFTER 7 DAYS IF NOTHING CHANGES ⚠️

Parents should never have to choose between electricity and child care.

Yet that is exactly what is happening right now across Arkansas.

Parents are reporting:

🔌 “My lights were shut off.”
💸 “We can’t pay the new copay and our rent.”
🚫 “I’m going to have to quit my job to take care of my child.”

This is not hypothetical.
This is not exaggerated.
This is real Arkansas families right now.

On Tuesday, the Arkansas Early Childhood Commission recognized the urgency and took action. They called for an Emergency Task Force to begin working on real solutions immediately.

✅ Providers were ready.
✅ Legislators were ready.
✅ Families are counting on it.

But then…

ADE decided that their definition of “emergency” meant pushing the first meeting a full week later, leaving only 3 days before the deadline that throws our state into a crisis.

That is not urgency.
That is not what families deserve.
That is not putting children first.

Make no mistake:

Providers are the ones laying solutions on the table, fighting for families, and demanding collaboration now, not at the final hour.

Meanwhile, ADE continues to control the timeline while trying to paint providers as self-serving.

Here’s the truth:

❤️ Families trust US every day
to care for their children,
to support them through hardships,
to show up when no one else does.

We are not fighting for ourselves. We are fighting for THEM.

And we will not sit back and watch families lose child care, lose jobs, or lose the lights because bureaucracy is dragging its feet.

7 DAYS LEFT.
Child care stays on or the lights go out for families across Arkansas.

The time to act is right now.

🌪 9 DAYS LEFT - Finding Shelter in the Storm

For weeks, it’s felt like we were standing in the path of a tornado; watching the sky darken, hearing the wind pick up, knowing what was coming.

But maybe, just maybe, there’s a little light breaking through the clouds.

It seems the Arkansas Department of Education is finally recognizing the severity of this storm and working to find a path forward. And our Early Childhood Commission has stepped up as the calm in the chaos, the real heroes in the room.

Their call for an emergency work group of providers, researchers, department representatives, and policy makers charged with battening down the hatches and coming up with a feasible escape plan might just be the first sign of real hope. It’s the kind of collaboration that could actually help us make it through this storm.

We may not get through without damage. Programs have already been cut. Families and teachers are already feeling the wind. But if we act now, if we follow through on these solutions, our state’s childcare system, and the lives it supports, may still make it out intact.

We have 9 days left to hold on, stay united, and push for real solutions before the storm fully hits.