Arkansas

Arkansas Out of School Network

The mission of the Arkansas Out of School Network (AOSN) is to create safe, healthy and enriching experiences for Arkansas youth during out-of-school time (OST). The goal of AOSN is to strengthen, expand and sustain Arkansas’ school-based and school-linked services to children and youth, ages five to 19 during OST.

Arkansas Out of School Network
Accomplishments: 
  • Launch of the Arkansas Fiscal Mapping Team.
  • Launch of the OST STEM Education Consortium.
  • Regional Expanded Learning Summits/Leadership Academies launched.
  • Southeast Arkansas Technology Grants awarded to nine OST programs.
  • Innovations Study Circles launched in two communities.
  • Arkansas  Grade Level Reading Campaign – AOSN leading Summer Learning Loss conversation.
  • Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign – AOSN leading the afterschool and summer program expansion effort.
  • Launched the “Youth Voice” Project with the Clinton School of Public.
     
Current Projects and Initiatives: 
  • AOSN is partnering with the David Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality to provide training and technical assistance for quality assessment and improvement planning in select afterschool programs across the state.
  • AOSN awarded its second Innovations Project to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR). UALR is a recipient of a Promise Neighborhood Grant and has included portions of the AOSN Innovations Project work within the Promise Neighborhood planning process.
  • The Division of Childcare and Early Childhood Education organized a workgroup to develop minimum licensing standards to include stand-alone regulations for OST and youth development programs.