Health Education and Human Sciences | Lion VoicesJune 28, 2024

LaKeisha Stinyard: Making the Biggest Impact with the Littlest Lions

Written By: Ian Silvester

LaKeisha Stinyard has yet to complete her first year working at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, but that hasn’t kept her from making her impact felt. It’s not in the classroom with college-age students, but with the youngest pupils that her influence is seen. As director of the Little Lions Child Development Center, Stinyard oversees teaching children aged six weeks to 3 years old. She has always been destined to educate the littlest of Lions.

It's her DNA

Born and raised in the small southeast Arkansas town of McGehee, Stinyard always wanted to do something to help others. Education came as a natural fit.

And for the last 28 years, education has been where Stinyard planted her roots and thrived.

Stinyard, a mother of two—a son, 26, and a daughter, 24—got her start teaching and working in childcare in McGehee before opportunities took her to the University of Arkansas of Medical Sciences. While working with special needs children at UAMS, Stinyard met Dr. Shelli Henehan, the UAFS director of early childhood education. Little did Stinyard know this connection would help her years later.

In 2023, she was living in Fort Smith as a HeadStart director in Northwest Arkansas.

When Henehan’s long-term project, the Little Lions Child Development Center, opened, it needed a director, and Henehan knew just who to contact.

“The fact that she is nurturing and has a fabulously engaging personality made her a perfect fit for the Little Lions Child Development Center,” Henehan shared. “I had seen her present at our annual early childhood education conference and have always been impressed with her intelligence and knowledge about developmentally appropriate practices.”

“She told me that the position was open, so I applied,” Stinyard said with a chuckle.

Stinyard said she always aspired to work for UAFS, and in September 2023, it became a reality. For the past nine months, she has been furiously working to improve the center and make it her own.

“We just started off the ground, so it takes time,” she said. “It may take a couple of years for everything to balance itself out.”

However, the progress made is already evident through the people Stinyard has hired to staff the center.

“Our staff are very, very well qualified. We all know that when you’re in early childhood education, it’s not about the money if your heart is really in it. It’s about those children, and I feel my staff have the heart and goals like mine,” Stinyard said proudly.

Earning Their Marks

When she arrived, Stinyard had two goals to help make the Little Lions Child Development Center stand apart from other childcare facilities in the area: affordability and quality. She and her team think they have achieved both.

One of the first things she did was make the center more affordable for families, especially for UAFS students who use the services. Instantly, Stinyard’s mind went toward the program that helped her with her own kids, the Arkansas Better Chance (ABC) program.

According to the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education website, the ABC program was established in 1991 to help children with developmental and financial risk factors by providing vouchers to offset the cost of care.

When Stinyard arrived, securing these vouchers was a priority, and her hard work was rewarded with 15 vouchers—all of which are currently being used by families using Little Lions Child Development Center.

And she didn’t stop at affordability. Stinyard next set her sights on providing the best quality care. The end of 2023 came with the news that the center was certified as a Better Beginnings Level III program.

Better Beginnings aims to prepare children for kindergarten through a play-based curriculum. Programs are awarded a rating level I through IV.

To earn the designation as a Better Beginnings Level III program, Stinyard and her staff completed a self-assessment of the program, maintained portfolios for each child, and graded the entire team on their education, continued training (a minimum of 15 hours a year), and early childhood environment rating scale.

“Our goal is to reach level six,” Stinyard said.

Learning Through Play

With nearly 30 years under her belt, Stinyard is an expert at practicing what she preaches when it comes to educating children.

“I’m going to get down on their level and play with them,” she said of her philosophy. “And I’m not going just to play one particular thing, but I’ll go and talk and play with them and move around.”

Traditionally, teaching children involves images of a classroom and lessons on writing, arithmetic, geography, and physical sciences. However, learning looks quite different at the Little Lions Child Development Center, and Stinyard has an answer as to why.

“Children learn through play, and a lot of people don’t realize it,” she expressed. “We’re not babysitters; we’re educators.”

The kids who make up the infant, toddler, and pre-K rooms have a structured 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. day with lesson plans drawn up by the classroom staff centered around play. Activities and games help develop social and emotional skills at the dramatic play center. Toys help foster creativity, the classroom library encourages imagination, and arts and crafts build fine motor skills.

“Their brains are like little sponges, and they soak up everything,” Stinyard said.

It is evident that Stinyard and her team are doing something right. When kids come to Little Lions Child Development Center, they don’t want to go home, Stinyard joked as she recounted stories about families who have toured the facility and saw how much their child enjoyed it.

Word has gotten out about the program, too. Standard has a waitlist for all classrooms and encourages any family interested in signing up. She admits new families on a first-come-first-served basis with a preference for UAFS students and employees, and as they continue to grow and meet the needs of the campus and community, she is excited for the program to grow and be able to take on more students.

Watch LaKeisha's story:

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• Little Lions Child Development Center
• School of Education
• College of Health Education and Human Sciences