It was a great morning to get out of class. Fourth and fifth graders Kevon Cooper, Elyse Settles, Faith Carthon, and Anthony Johnson were plucked out of their Stephens Elementary School classrooms Tuesday, Sept. 28, to help hold a sign at a news conference.

The kids said they didn’t know what all the hubbub was about. They just knew it was a pretty day and the grownups seems to be extremely excited about something.

Kevon says math is his favorite subject. What is he going to be when he grows up? “I think a police officer,” he said. Elyse and Faith, who say their favorite subject is science, want to be hairdressers when they grow up. Anthony, also a fan of math, didn’t hesitate knowing what his future holds: he is going to play NBA basketball.

What they didn’t know is their lives had just taken a turn for the better. They live in a central Little Rock neighborhood that being targeted by a consortium of institutions partnering together to make sure Kevon, Elyse, Faith, Anthony, and all the other children in their neighborhood will get support they need to go to college and find a career that will open up a world that they now barely know exists.

UALR and five other partners — the city of Little Rock, Little Rock School District, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, New Futures, and Central Arkansas Library System — are committing their institutions to do “whatever it takes” to prepare each child in the central Little Rock neighborhood for college and a promising career.

Julie Hall, the Harvard-educated director of UALR’s University District Educational Network, wrote the planning grant, one of only 20 the Obama administration picked to replicate the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone. No one — not parents, nor teachers, nor the children — will have an excuse to fail. The kids will get the best instruction, world-class health care, mentoring, tutoring, after-school enrichment “from cradle to college.”

For Kevon, Elyse, Faith, and Anthony, and all the other kids living in the central Little Rock neighborhood, it was a life-changing day — and more are on the way.