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An interesting read regarding the equitable services guidance for the CARES money. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/5/5/21248179/equitable-services-coronavirus-private-schools

Here is the official document that details the waivers due to COVID-19. https://www2.ed.gov/documents/coronavirus/cares-waiver-report.pdf

How are some of your districts planning on spending the CARES funds?

The latest update from Betsy DeVos gives districts great latitude with Title IV funding. Note the waivers that will be available in the bullets. Of course, MDE must request a waiver for all of this, but I’m sure they will do so. However, to date no one has heard from MDE Office of Federal Programs … Read more

The MDE Federal Programs Office keeps saying they will be putting out a timeline shortly regarding planning and other FP guidelines. Until then, I guess we will just be in a holding pattern. In the meantime, periodically check the MDE website COVID-19 message and click on Federal Programs for any information they have put out. … Read more

There was a question about providing services to EL, homeless, and foster students. The only guidance I have found so far has to do with making sure the students’ civil rights are protected. This is what was stated about EL. “Effective Communication and Language Assistance: When school officials provide information to students, parents, and the … Read more

Since we don’t know how long this COVID-19 social distancing may last, many are thinking we won’t go back to school this year. That raises a lot of questions about federal funds and grant requirements. A few of my questions were Can we pay federally funded personnel for not coming to work as we are … Read more

Hi Friends! How are you doing in the midst of this COVID-19 quarantine? Let’s support one another here. Check in and tell us what you are doing these days. I’ll start… I’m homeschooling two children, my 3rd grade grandson and 5th grade daughter of my son’s fiancee. Today was our first day, and it went … Read more

Forrest County and Petal have completed their monitoring visits with MDE. It really wasn’t too bad. We had visits from a team of 4 people who stayed for 2 days. The teams were very professional and polite. They asked for evidence if they didn’t see what they were looking for and allowed us to provide … Read more

Has everyone begun running their comprehensive needs assessment surveys? This is a great time to add questions for Title IV and Homeless; you can knock out those requirements at the same time. Any suggestions for getting more parent responses to the surveys?

So…. MDE extended the deadline for FY20 plans. It all seems to hinge around the revised allocation amounts. MDE appears to be having a hard time getting the correct reallocation amount back in the funding page after making adjustments for December draws. How are you handling this?

I don’t think we will have to worry about funding cuts next year….🤔 Even though President Trump’s proposed budget had cuts for the Department of Education, he signed the fiscal 2020 spending bill into law that increased education funding. “The fiscal 2020 spending bill Trump just signed provides $72.8 billion in discretionary funding to the … Read more