School Newsletter Requirements in Arkansas: What Principals Must Know

Arkansas education law changed significantly in 2023 with the passage of the LEARNS Act (Act 813 of 2023). The law reshaped school choice, literacy standards, and parental rights in ways that directly affect what principals must communicate to families. If you are running an Arkansas school with a communication system built before 2023, that system may no longer be adequate.

This guide covers what the LEARNS Act and existing Arkansas law require schools to communicate, what best practices look like for Arkansas's specific demographics, and how to build a newsletter system that covers compliance without overwhelming your staff.

What the Arkansas LEARNS Act requires schools to communicate

The Arkansas LEARNS Act (Act 813 of 2023) created several new communication obligations for principals and districts. Key requirements include:

• Parental notification of rights: Schools must provide written notification of parental rights at the beginning of each school year. This includes the right to review curriculum and instructional materials, the right to information about assessments, and the right to opt out of certain data collection.
• School choice notification: Arkansas's expanded Education Freedom Account program and open enrollment provisions require schools to notify families annually of available school choice options. Principals who do not communicate this information are out of compliance.
• Literacy benchmark results: Arkansas has a strong literacy law requiring early identification and intervention for students who are not reading on grade level. Schools must communicate reading benchmark results to parents and notify families when a student is identified for intervention.
• ACT Aspire results: Arkansas uses ACT Aspire for grades 3-10. Schools must communicate individual results to families and provide context for what scores indicate about grade-level readiness.
• Title I Family Engagement Policy: Title I schools must maintain and share a written Family Engagement Policy, which should specify newsletter frequency and communication channels.

ACT Aspire communication for Arkansas grades 3-10

Arkansas is one of relatively few states that uses ACT Aspire through grade 10, making it one of the broadest state assessment programs in the country. This means more years of test results to communicate, more parent questions to answer, and more context to provide about what scores mean for high school readiness.

A practical ACT Aspire communication calendar for Arkansas schools:

• March: Pre-testing newsletter explaining what ACT Aspire covers at each grade level and what the April-May testing window involves
• April-May: Reminder communications about testing dates and any logistics parents need to know (testing days, materials, schedule changes)
• June: Results communication explaining the four performance levels and what they indicate about readiness
• August: Fall newsletter connecting prior year results to current year academic goals and available support programs

For grades 9-10 in Arkansas, ACT Aspire results have specific implications for high school readiness and eventually college placement. Principals at high schools should make this connection explicit in their communication, not leave parents to figure out what an 8th grade ACT Aspire score means for their child's high school trajectory.

Northwest Arkansas and the language access imperative

Northwest Arkansas has one of the fastest-growing Hispanic communities in the South. The Springdale, Rogers, Fayetteville, and Bentonville area has seen significant immigration driven by employment at Walmart headquarters, its supplier network, and the region's poultry processing industry. In Springdale specifically, the school district has one of the largest proportions of English Language Learner students in Arkansas.

For principals in NW Arkansas, Spanish translation is not a courtesy. It is a Title VI requirement for schools with significant LEP enrollment, and practically speaking, a newsletter that does not reach Spanish-speaking families is not doing its job. The most effective approach is to make Spanish-English bilingual newsletters the default, not an on-request option.

Some schools in the Springdale area also have Marshallese-speaking families, part of a significant Pacific Islander community in the region. While full translation into Marshallese is a significant resource challenge, even a brief Marshallese summary or a notification of who to call for interpretation signals to these families that the school sees them.

Arkansas school calendar communication needs

Arkansas requires 178 instructional days, one of the slightly lower minimums in the South but still a full school year. The school calendar creates predictable newsletter needs:

• Back-to-school registration and supply information (August)
• Arkansas literacy benchmark results for early grades (fall, under the Arkansas Literacy Law)
• ACT Aspire testing preparation (beginning in March)
• ACT Aspire testing window logistics (April-May)
• End-of-year ACT Aspire results communication (June)
• School choice and Education Freedom Account enrollment windows
• Open enrollment application deadlines for the following school year
• Parent-teacher conference scheduling
• Report card distribution dates

LEARNS Act literacy focus and what it means for newsletters

The LEARNS Act placed reading proficiency at the center of Arkansas education policy. The state has invested in the Science of Reading curriculum and requires early identification of students who are not on grade level. For principals, this creates a specific communication obligation: when a student is identified through literacy benchmarks as needing intervention, the family must be notified in writing and given information about the support being provided.

Your newsletter can support this obligation broadly. Include a standing section each fall about the school's literacy program, what benchmarks are used, and what parents can do at home to support reading. This prepares families for individual notification if their child is identified, and it communicates the school's commitment to early literacy to all families, not just those with struggling readers.

Building a newsletter system that covers LEARNS Act compliance

The LEARNS Act increased communication expectations without providing additional administrative resources to meet them. For Arkansas principals, the practical challenge is covering more compliance content without adding hours to your week.

The solution is a template with standing sections for compliance content. Your LEARNS Act parental rights language, school choice notification, and literacy program description can live in your newsletter template and be updated annually rather than written fresh each week. The weekly content sections (upcoming events, calendar, current news) are the only parts that change each issue.

Schools using Daystage in Arkansas build their LEARNS Act compliance sections into their template once, then update the variable content weekly. The bilingual workflow supports Northwest Arkansas schools sending Spanish-English newsletters without additional design work. The free plan includes school-specific templates and requires no credit card.