American Rescue Plan (ARP) ESSER III State Discretionary Funds

Overview

<p class="btn btn-gold btn-block"><strong>UPDATED on 11/17/2021: The ADE website incorrectly states the ESSER III deadline was changed to February 1, 2022. </strong></p> <p class="btn btn-gold btn-block"><strong>THE DEADLINE HAS NOT CHANGED and remains December 10, 2021 by 5 PM (local AZ time).</strong></p> <p><span style="font-size:1em">The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has received funding through the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act to provide new Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER III Fund grants to support local recovery needs and efforts in response to COVID-19. ESSER III includes new required set asides for both ADE and LEAs. These will help guide state and local decision making for leveraging these new funds to accelerate academic success – particularly for our most vulnerable student populations. </span></p> <p>While the vast majority of ARP ESSER III funds went directly to LEAs for COVID recovery, ADE, as the State Education Agency, has the authority to maintain a portion of funds for statewide initiatives and investments. In addition, under ARP, the ESSER Fund includes three State-level reservations<br>for activities and interventions that address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student subgroups, including each major racial and ethnic group, children from low-income families, children with disabilities, English learners, gender, migrant students, students experiencing homelessness, and children and youth in foster care:</p> <ul> <li>5 % of the total ARP ESSER allocation for the implementation of evidence-based interventions aimed specifically at addressing learning loss,</li> <li>1 % of the total ARP ESSER allocation for evidence-based summer enrichment programs.</li> <li>1 % of the total ARP ESSER allocation for evidence-based comprehensive after-school programs</li> </ul> <p>The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) is glad to announce the application for American Rescue Plan (ARP) ESSER State Funds. With the approval of ADE’s American Rescue Plan’s state plan, our agency was awarded the final installment of ARP ESSER funding, including discretionary dollars that will be allocated to sub-recipients to fund initiatives that support student success and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The application is open to a wide variety of partners, including community organizations and other entities that support students and families. These funds are intended to support programs aimed at accelerating and enriching learning and increasing learning opportunities – particularly for our most vulnerable student populations. The U.S. Department of Education has developed three lanes that the types of programs applicants put forth should address.</p> <p>ADE will use its approved ARP ESSER plan developed with stakeholder feedback and data to bring additional focus to the work at-hand and ahead under the following key priority areas:</p> <ol> <li>Enrichment and reinforcement to learning</li> <li>Mental, behavioral, and physical health support for students and educators</li> <li>Student and family re-engagement and support for critical academic transition periods, including early childhood to Kindergarten, middle to high school, and high school to post-secondary.</li> </ol> <p>These priorities will help ADE address key pressing issues currently facing students and schools across the state, including, but not limited to:</p> <ol> <li><strong>Assessing learning loss and measuring and evaluating progress:</strong> Schools need guidance on how best to assess the impact of learning loss of students, selecting and using universal screening tools, diagnostic assessments, and other data sources to identify learning gaps. This would include how to analyze these local assessment data to support instructional decision-making and how to measure and evaluate the impact of evidence-based strategies, programs, and practices on student learning over time</li> <li><strong>Equitably increasing learning opportunities and digital access:</strong> The pandemic revealed longstanding inequities in learning opportunities – particularly for Arizona's historically underserved and most vulnerable student populations. There is a critical need to support the intentional selection and implementation of evidence-based strategies and resources to support schools equitably and sustainably, accelerate learning and increase learning opportunities for students. Across the state, students' uneven engagement in distance and online learning exacerbated absenteeism and learning gaps due to lost instructional time. Given this, there is a need to continue to address the digital divide and homework gap – particularly concerning access to reliable, high-speed internet for students at home and supporting teachers on how to integrate the use of technology in their teaching effectively.</li> <li><strong>Addressing disruption and trauma on student learning and development:</strong> Support that may have previously been in place was either limited or ended due to schools' inability to effectively deliver these services when closed for in-person learning or operating in hybrid models. Furthermore, the pandemic brought new grief, loss, and trauma, potentially including increased risk for violence and abuse in the home. Given this, there will continue to be a need to provide targeted, evidence-based strategies to support students, staff, and families' well-being and mental health needs. There is also a need for ongoing professional learning, resources, and support for teachers to integrate SocialEmotional Learning competencies into their daily classroom routines and practices and trauma-sensitive approaches using frameworks.</li> </ol> <p><em><strong>How is ESSER III different from ESSER I and ESSER II?</strong></em><br>ESSER III differs from the first two ESSER awards. It contains new requirements for LEAs. These include:</p> <ul> <li>New 20% required set aside to address disrupted learning using evidence-based academic, social and emotional learning strategies for vulnerable populations of students (<a href="https://www.azed.gov/esser/addressing-disrupted-learning">https://www.a…;)</li> <li>ESSER III LEA plan requirements, to include engaging in meaningful consultation with stakeholders in the development of the plan</li> <li>Safe return to in-person instruction plan (<a href="https://www.azed.gov/esser/safe-return-person-learning">https://www.aze…;)</li> <li>Local maintenance of equity requirements</li> </ul>