Early November 2025 brought two important opportunities for Excel by Eight and our partners to share Arkansas’s early childhood work with both state and national audiences. From the Walton Family Foundation’s Arkansas Early Childhood Care and Education Initiative Convening in Bentonville to the Reach Out and Read and Nurture Connection National Summit in Washington, D.C., E8 leaders highlighted how communities across the state are strengthening early learning, family engagement, and health outcomes for children and mothers.
Arkansas Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Initiative Convening | Bentonville, Arkansas
Excel by Eight joined partners from across the state in Bentonville for the Arkansas ECCE Initiative Convening, A Bright Start for Every Child, hosted by the Walton Family Foundation. The gathering focused on strengthening collaboration and sharing new ideas to improve early care and education in Arkansas.
During the On the Horizon session, E8 executive director Angela Duran shared about a partnership with LENA and the University of Arkansas Early Care and Education Projects to evaluate tools that will demonstrate a positive impact on child outcomes in Arkansas’s developing statewide early childhood accountability system. She explained how CLASS, the classroom observation tool being piloted by the Department of Education, measures the quality of teacher–child interactions and why those interactions matter for early learning. Angela also highlighted LENA Grow, a coaching and professional development model that uses data on verbal interactions to help educators strengthen those interactions. LENA Grow has been piloted in Independence County and is expanding to 400 classrooms in additional regions as part of a randomized controlled trial evaluation being conducted by the University of Virginia.
Other Arkansas partners contributed to the convening as well. Jamie Ward, president of Curricula Concepts, participated in a breakout session featuring the Be Well Care Well model, which supports the well-being of early childhood educators and reflects the broader statewide commitment to strengthening the early childhood workforce.
Reach Out and Read + Nurture Connection National Summit | Washington, D.C.
That same week, several members of the E8 team traveled to Washington, D.C., for the Reach Out and Read and Nurture Connection National Summit. They joined leaders from across the country to discuss how Arkansas communities are strengthening Early Relational Health, which focuses on the strong, positive connections between young children and the adults who care for them.
During a panel, communities director Jessi Rice Woods joined Conway County family leader Princess Johnson on stage to share more about E8’s work at both the state and local levels. They highlighted Excel by Eight’s role in launching the Early Development Instrument as a bridge between health and education, Conway County’s parent engagement work through conversation cafés, and partnerships in Batesville that expanded home visiting services through Maternal Life360.
At the same summit, Anna Strong, executive director of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Excel by Eight Foundations’ health policy lead, joined the policy plenary to highlight recent policy changes that are making HealthySteps more sustainable in Arkansas. She explained how new Medicaid payments for universal developmental screenings and maternal depression screenings are helping clinics deliver recommended care at well-child visits. She also noted that Act 513 now provides a supplemental payment to practices implementing HealthySteps, helping cover the cost of a HealthySteps specialist. These changes, shaped through years of collaborative effort, are allowing more clinics across the state to adopt HealthySteps and reach more infants, toddlers, and families.
In addition to the representatives from Excel by Eight, Arkansas had a notable presence at the national summit. Amy Stephenson from the Arkansas Children’s Care Network and Dr. Chad Rodgers from AFMC also highlighted the successes happening in Arkansas. Together, they reinforced how community-driven work and cross-sector partnerships continue to strengthen early childhood systems across the state.
