The Arkansas LEARNS Act, enacted as Act 237 of 2023, is the state’s biggest K-12 overhaul in decades. It raised the minimum teacher salary to $50,000, created Education Freedom Accounts that families can spend on private school tuition and other approved expenses, set new reading standards with a third-grade retention rule starting in 2025-2026, added a 75-hour community service requirement for graduation, and repealed longstanding teacher dismissal protections. Several pieces are still phasing in, and a constitutional challenge to the Education Freedom Account program is pending.
Education Freedom Accounts
Education Freedom Accounts, or EFAs, are the Act’s most visible provision for families. An EFA is a state-managed account that pays for approved educational expenses outside the traditional public school system. Each participating student receives up to 90% of the state’s annual per-student public school funding. For the 2025-2026 school year, that amount is $6,864.1Arkansas Senate. EFA Accounts Funded Through 2025-2026 School Year
Approved expenses include private school tuition, textbooks, instructional materials, uniforms, tutoring, and technology. The Arkansas Department of Education deposits funds quarterly and reviews purchases for compliance. ADE may use a third-party manager such as ClassWallet to handle payments.2Arkansas Department of Education. Arkansas Education Freedom Account Family Handbook 2025-26
Who Qualifies
Eligibility opened in stages. The first year was limited to narrow categories such as first-time kindergarteners, students from F-rated schools or Level 5 districts, students with disabilities under IDEA, children of active-duty military, students experiencing homelessness, current or former foster children, and students coming from the Succeed Scholarship Program. By 2025-2026 the program went universal, and the 2026-2027 year is the second year of universal eligibility for all K-12 students regardless of income or school rating.3Arkansas Department of Education. Family EFA Details4Arkansas Department of Education. Education Freedom Account Application Cycle Opens for Year Four
What You Can’t Spend It On
Act 920 of 2025 capped the share of an EFA that can go toward extracurricular activities, physical education, or in-state educational field trips at 25% of the student’s allocation. That category does not cover team sports or club sports. EFA funds cannot be used for equipment, recreational fees, travel costs, or dues.
Pending Lawsuit
A lawsuit filed in June 2024 argues the EFA program unlawfully diverts public school funding to private schools in violation of the Arkansas Constitution. In December 2025 the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled the case could proceed and rejected the state’s sovereign immunity defense. Three parents who use EFAs were allowed to intervene. The merits have not been decided, and the program is operating normally while the case is pending.
Reading Rules and Third-Grade Retention
The LEARNS Act requires K-12 instruction to align with structured literacy grounded in the Science of Reading. Districts must give every K-3 student a state-approved literacy screener within the first 30 days of school. Students flagged as struggling readers get an individual reading plan listing their skill gaps, growth benchmarks, intervention programs, and strategies parents can use at home. Districts report their K-3 intervention types to ADE annually.5Arkansas Department of Education. Early Literacy – Arkansas LEARNS Act
Beginning at the end of the 2025-2026 school year, third-graders who do not meet the state reading standard will not be promoted to fourth grade. Retained students must receive 90 minutes of evidence-based literacy instruction each school day, be assigned to a highly effective teacher, and get a read-at-home plan.6Arkansas Department of Education. Third-Grade Promotion
Several good cause exemptions allow promotion anyway:
- Students with significant cognitive disabilities who take the Dynamic Learning Map assessment
- Students with an IEP or 504 Plan who have had more than two years of documented Science of Reading intervention
- English learners with fewer than three years of formal English instruction
- Students previously retained
- Students who were evaluated for special education, did not qualify, and have had two or more years of evidence-based intervention
- Portfolio exemptions for students who consistently perform at grade level but scored poorly on the assessment
- An isolated traumatic event that directly affected test performance
Watch the screener results your child’s school sends home during the year. Those scores are the earliest signal of whether retention is a real possibility.7Arkansas Department of Education. Third-Grade Promotion Guidance 2025-2026
Families of K-3 students who are at risk of reading difficulties, or who did not meet the reading standard on the state assessment, can access a $500 literacy tutoring grant to pay for tutoring or an approved digital literacy app from a state-approved provider. Fourth-graders held back under the new promotion rule also qualify.8Arkansas Department of Education. Literacy Tutoring Grant Program District-Facing Guidance
Community Service to Graduate
Students who entered 9th grade in 2023-2024, the Class of 2027, are the first group that has to complete 75 hours of documented community service to graduate. The hours are spread across the four years:
- 9th grade: 15 hours
- 10th grade: 20 hours
- 11th grade: 20 hours
- 12th grade: 20 hours
Documentation matters. Keep records as hours are earned rather than reconstructing them senior year.9Arkansas Department of Education. Community Service Requirement for Graduation Guidance
Teacher Pay
The Act set a $50,000 minimum base salary for classroom teachers in Arkansas public schools and open-enrollment charter schools, up from $36,000. Teachers already above $50,000 were guaranteed a raise of at least $2,000. The state put $183 million behind the increase.10Arkansas Department of Education. LEARNS Teacher Minimum Salary and Raise Fund
To draw the state money, a district has to use contracts reflecting a minimum 190-day work year, spend at least 80% of its school-level personnel salary allocation on teacher salaries and raises, and adopt a salary schedule. One important change: base salaries no longer automatically increase with years of experience or advanced degrees. Districts have more flexibility, and a teacher with a master’s and 15 years in the classroom no longer has a guaranteed salary advantage under state law.11Justia Law. Arkansas Code 6-17-2403 – Minimum Teacher Compensation
The Act also created the Merit Teacher Incentive Fund, which pays performance bonuses of up to $10,000 a year to teachers whose students post the strongest growth scores.12Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. Merit Teacher Incentive Fund
Teacher Dismissal and Job Protections
LEARNS repealed the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act, which for decades had given teachers continuously employed for three or more years procedural protections that stretched any dismissal into a multi-step process.13Justia Law. Arkansas Code 6-17-1506 – Teacher Fair Dismissal Act Districts now have broader discretion over non-renewals and terminations.
Districts also cannot use seniority or tenure as the primary factor in hiring, assignment, or dismissal. A reduction-in-force can no longer default to last hired, first fired, and every district’s RIF plan has to reflect that. Teachers keep basic due-process rights under state law, including notice and a hearing, but the procedural guardrails are much thinner than they were.11Justia Law. Arkansas Code 6-17-2403 – Minimum Teacher Compensation
Paid Maternity Leave for School Employees
Effective July 1, 2025, eligible employees in public school districts and open-enrollment charter schools can receive up to 12 weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child. The 12-week period starts on the day of the qualifying event and extends by one day for each school holiday or weather cancellation inside it. The state reimburses the leave, and districts can offer more than the 12-week minimum.14Code of Arkansas Rules. 6 CAR 193-105 – Eligible Employee Maternity Leave
Low-Performing Schools and Rural Protections
The Act expanded State Board of Education authority over struggling schools. A public school with a D or F accountability rating, or one classified at “Level 5 — Intensive Support” because of ongoing academic, financial, or administrative problems, can enter a transformation contract. Those contracts let an outside entity such as an open-enrollment charter school, an education cooperative, or another state-approved organization take over management with State Board approval.
Rural communities got a specific carve-out. Schools with fewer than 350 students are exempt from consolidation if any student would have to travel more than 40 miles by bus to the receiving school.
For families with questions about EFA applications or literacy grant eligibility, the Office of School Choice and Parent Empowerment within the Arkansas Department of Education is the primary contact point.2Arkansas Department of Education. Arkansas Education Freedom Account Family Handbook 2025-26