Maribeth Jaimes, 6 months old, and Briseyda Ocampo attend Infant Time on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026 at Kooken Education Center in Arlington. Arlington ISD offers Infant Time, a 5-week program offered twice a school year for ages 0 to 3 years old.
Abigail Dollins
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Arlington Independent School District is helping parents become their child’s first teacher through free Infant Time and Toddler Time classes. The program aims to prepare young children for school long before they reach pre-K age.
FULL STORY: Arlington ISD offers free classes to families of infants, toddlers. Here’s why.
Here are key takeaways:
The classes are free and open to community members with infant or toddler-age children. Infant Time runs for about a month at the start of fall and spring semesters, while Toddler Time is offered throughout the school year at Title I schools.Suzanne Stevenson, Title I family engagement specialist with Arlington ISD, said other districts have reached out about the program but she hasn’t seen another district in the area offer something similar. Toddler Time launched in the early 2000s, and Infant Time was added in 2022.Vanessa Valadez, a Title I facilitator focused on early childhood outreach, teaches parents developmental milestones — such as how children begin recognizing quantities by 6 months old — and encourages activities like counting on fingers aloud to build motor skills.At a recent class at Kooken Education Center, Cook Children’s Health Care System representatives covered sleep safety in English and Spanish, including the “ABC’s of the Zzzs” — babies should sleep Alone, on their Back and in a Crib.Sandra Kitchen, a marketing representative and community health worker with Cook Children’s, said Tarrant County recorded 120 Sudden Unexpected Infant Death cases between 2020 and 2024. Unintentional suffocation is the leading cause of injury-related deaths among children younger than 1.
The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by journalists.
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Lina Ruiz covers early childhood education in Tarrant County and North Texas for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A University of Florida graduate, she previously wrote about local government in South Florida for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers.