Sneak Preview: Comments Sought on MOEquity Proposed Requirement
(The following was excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants 360 article.) The Department of Education (ED) is seeking public comments on a recently proposed requirement pertaining to the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) that is intended to promote accountability and transparency and ensure that each state educational agency (SEA) and local educational agency (LEA) meets the statutory requirement to maintain equity.
The relief fund, authorized under the ARP Act (Pub. L. 117-2), provided some $122 billion to help SEAs and LEAs safely reopen and help schools address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ academic, social, emotional and mental health needs. To receive funds, SEAs and LEAs must comply with multiple requirements, including a maintenance of equity (MOEquity) requirement under section 2004 of ARP (see “ED To Require New MOEquity for ARP ESSER Funding,” August 2021).
Specifically, MOEquity ensures SEAs do not disproportionately reduce per-pupil state funding to “high-need” or “highest-poverty” LEAs below their federal fiscal year (FY) 2019 levels. In addition, it requires that LEAs do not disproportionately reduce state and local per-pupil funding in high-poverty schools, nor disproportionately reduce the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff per pupil in high-poverty schools. Accordingly, if state or local funds are cut, the MOEquity provisions ensure that LEAs and schools serving a large share of students from low-income backgrounds do not experience a disproportionate share of such cuts in FYs 2022 and 2023, and that the highest poverty LEAs do not receive a decrease in state funding below their FY 2019 level.
Under the proposed requirement, SEAs, by Dec. 31 of each applicable school year, must report specific MOEquity data on LEAs in the state, unless the LEA is excluded from this requirement. The information must be published on the SEA’s website in a way that is machine-readable and accessible for parents and families.
(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)
Join us for our following Thompson Grants events:
Federal Grants Forum For Tribal Nations | October 27 - 28, 2021 | Virtual Event
Federal Grants Forum: Orlando | December 14 - 16, 2021
