Search the grant forecast for fiscal year (FY) 2023 funding opportunities and information from the Department of Education.

Funding opportunities in this issue include those from the Impact Aid Program; Office of Indian Education; and the Office of Migrant Education.

It's starting to feel like spring in the Washington, D.C. area, and it looks like we’re going to have an early cherry blossom bloom! In each of our newsletters, we try to focus on an important topic or a collection of useful resources. Our topic this month – foster care – provides both. You’ll find information on how the Department, state foster care points of contact, partners in state child welfare agencies, and our colleagues in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Children’s Bureau are working together to support students in foster care. In the newsletter, we highlight the recently released “Data-sharing Snapshot,” a new EDFacts Data Collection, and the Foster Care Exchange. I want to bring particular attention to the last, as it provides a forum for state foster care points of contacts to have a community of practice (COP) to share resources and work through challenges across states. These communities help not only those participating in the COP, but also the students they serve by finding ways to support these students through whatever challenge they face.

This brings me to importance of partnerships in foster care. This summer I had an opportunity to co-write with Aysha Schomburg (associate commissioner of the Children’s Bureau in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, HHS) in the Department’s official blog, Homeroom. The article notes that the foster care system cannot work without many partnerships across many agencies. I believe the blog post is a worthy read, as it highlights several programs that we have here in the Department supporting students in foster care.

On a slightly different note, on Feb. 16, Secretary Miguel Cardona and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy hosted a youth mental health town hall in Virginia. It was an opportunity to discuss the mental health needs of students with our most important constituents:  students themselves. It also highlighted the resources the Department is providing to address this need. On that same day, the Department announced $188 million dollars of awards to increase access to school-based mental health services and increase the pipeline of mental health professionals in schools. Read the press release, which includes the list of 170 grantees across 30 states. I am excited to see the impact these grants will have on the field.

I hope you find the information and resources in this newsletter helpful!  I hope spring is coming your way as well!

Ruth Ryder

Students in foster care are a highly mobile student population, and these students frequently experience disruptive school placement changes as they interact with the child welfare system. With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) now includes a set of requirements designed to minimize, to the extent possible, disruptions in school enrollment and attendance for students in foster care. Through these requirements, a student in foster care may be entitled to remain at his or her current school placement (known as their “school of origin”) when the student enters the child welfare system or experiences a change in foster care placement. When it is determined that a student should remain at his or her school of origin, the student is entitled to transportation to the school of origin; however, if it is not in the student’s best interest to remain at the school of origin, the Title I, Part A requirements entitle that student to immediately enroll in his or her new neighborhood school. The provisions also include requirements about collaboration between educational agencies and child welfare agencies to better support the unique needs of students in foster care.

To support the implementation of these Title I, Part A requirements, OESE works directly with state foster care points of contact, partners in state child welfare agencies, and colleagues at HHS’ Children’s Bureau. Additional information about students in foster care is available on the Department’s website. 

A few recent highlights from the students in foster care program include:

• Data-sharing Snapshots: The Department studied the prevalence of data-sharing practices between state educational agencies (SEAs) and state child welfare agencies to better identify and support students in foster care. Through this study, the Department recently released a set of snapshots that profile how eight States — California, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin — share data and information about students in foster care. These snapshots, as well as a short overview of the study, are available on our program website.
• New EDFacts Data Collection: To ensure that students in foster care receive the services they are entitled to under Title I, Part A, it is essential that local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools know which students they serve are in foster care. As such, beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, the Department required states to report student in foster care enrollment counts for LEAs that receive Title I, Part A subgrants. Learn more about the EDFacts initiative and this new collection.
• The Foster Care Exchange: In partnership with the Department’s National Comprehensive Center, the Department launched the Foster Care Exchange, an online collaboration space for state foster care points of contact. Through the Exchange, state foster care points of contact have developed a community of practitioners that shares resources, works through common implementation challenges, and celebrates community successes. It includes a blog series, Supporting Students in Foster Care. The first blog post in this series is titled The Power of Being Understood for Children and Youth in Foster Care. The second blog post is titled How to Help Our Children in Foster Care Create, Navigate, and Maintain Relationships. The National Comprehensive Center just launched a webpage related to their work supporting students in foster care. More information about the Foster Care Exchange is available by contacting FosterCare@ed.gov.

Meet Department staff members, Scott Richardson and Bryan Thurmond

Scott and Bryan are the small (but mighty!) team leading OESE’s students in foster care activities. Both Scott (right) and Bryan (below) are career-long educators.

How long have you both been at the Department? Scott has worked at the Department for 3 years while Bryan has worked at the Department for 8.5 years. Scott began his career working in civic and environmental education nonprofits, and Bryan began his career as a pre-kindergarten teacher in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

What do you most enjoy about working at the Department? It is such a privilege to work on the students in foster care program! Without a doubt, the highlight of our work is the opportunity to partner with — and learn from — the state foster care points of contact who work each day to improve outcomes for students in their communities. (Shout out to our fantastic SEA partners from across the country!)

On Jan. 24, Secretary Cardona delivered a major address at the Department’s Lyndon Baines Johnson building in Washington, D.C. “Raise the Bar: Lead the World,” is where the Secretary laid out the Department’s focus for the year, building off his priorities to promote academic excellence and prepare for global competitiveness that he outlined last year. Afterward, he held a fireside chat with the executive director of the National PTA, Nathan R. Monell, CAE.

During his address, Secretary Cardona set out his vision for the direction the Department will follow in 2023. Secretary Cardona addressed promoting academic excellence, improving learning conditions, and preparing our students for a world where global engagement is critical to our nation’s standing.   He highlighted the key focus areas of “Raise the Bar: Lead the World”: 

• Achieving Academic Excellence 
• Accelerate learning for every student 
• Deliver a comprehensive and rigorous education for every student 
• Boldly Improve Learning Conditions 
• Eliminate the educator shortage for every school 
• Invest in every student’s mental health and well-being 
• Creating Pathways for Global Engagements 
• Ensure every student has a pathway to college and career 
• Provide every student with a pathway to multilingualism

Click here to view a full transcript of Secretary Cardona’s remarks, and view Raise the Bar: Lead the World on YouTube.   

Raise the Bar: Lead the World will include several external components. The first is to visit schools with large concentrations of diverse and Title I students and hold roundtables with students, educators, parents, and families. The second is to hold statewide roundtables to include higher education, nonprofit organizations, business community, labor partners, advocacy groups, and philanthropy. 

The next stops on the Raise the Bar: Lead the World tour include New York, Alabama, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia, and California.

Review of the Raise the Bar Literacy and Math Series to address academic recovery

In October 2022, as part of the Biden-Harris administration’s ongoing efforts to support students’ academic recovery, the Department announced a five-part learning series focused on strategies and programs to boost student literacy and math outcomes.

The Oct. 26 kickoff event was a continued call to action for practitioners, education leaders, and policymakers to leverage the extraordinary levels of federal resources to mitigate learning loss and accelerate academic recovery. The event highlighted bright spots of states and districts advancing policies and programs to boost math and literacy outcomes.  

The second session, on Nov. 10, highlighted concrete practices and research on rigorous instruction for all students. Several Department-funded technical assistance centers made presentations on resources aligned with the session’s topic, Best Practices and Research on Rigorous Instruction for all Students in Literacy and Mathematics.

The third session, on Dec. 8, centered on increasing support for students beyond the classroom, including best practices and research in after-school and summer programming, tutoring and mentoring, and parent partnerships.

The fourth session, on Jan. 12, offered promising practices to address teacher shortages, including building a better teacher preparation system in New Mexico, evidence-based strategies to retain teachers and address shortages in New Jersey and Missouri, and key policy levers to boost the diversity of the educator workforce.

The fifth and final session, on Feb. 9, centered on sustained, cohesive efforts to improve educational practice. 

In all of the sessions, the Department sought to build engagement from the field; identify collaboration opportunities among research, practice, and funding; and lift best practices and resources for practitioners and policymakers to take action to address learning loss and academic recovery. Keep an eye on the Best Practices Clearinghouse for continued updates of new resources.

Read the full press release for more information.

Safe and supportive learning environments (SSLE) deep dive

Apply for a free, six-part series, hosted by the national Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety (CISELSS), Centering Racial Equity in Safe and Supportive Learning Environments. This series takes educators and education leaders on a deep dive into racial equity and safe and supportive learning environments. The goal of the series is to develop participants’ understanding of how race functions in our society at the individual, interpersonal, and systemic levels and our roles and responsibilities in disrupting racism. Participants will work closely with their peers and SSLE facilitators in a collaborative learning community to develop the mindsets, knowledge, and capacity to engage with racial equity from an empowered space in their work within schools, districts, and agencies.

Who will benefit:

• K-12 school district superintendents and administrators
• Principals and site administrators
• Teachers, teacher leaders, behavior specialists, and intervention coordinators
• Counselors, school psychologists, and mental health professionals

The session dates are April 11, April 13, April 18, April 20, April 25, and April 27. All sessions will run from 4 to 5:30 p.m. EST / 1 to 2:30 p.m. PST. (Please note: The first session will run from 4 to 6 p.m. EST / 1 to 3 p.m. PST).

More information can be found on this website, including the application. Applications are due March 14.

Strategies for funding grow your own programs  

As many of our nation’s schools face a shortage of teachers, particularly a shortage of teachers who represent the racial, cultural, and linguistic background of our students, one strategy that holds promise for strengthening and diversifying the educator workforce are grow your own (GYO) programs. Access a multimedia package, Cultivating Teacher Talent Through Grow Your Own Programs, that was developed from a 2022 series of three webinar sessions conveniently broken down into key insights, real-world examples, and expert-given advice that can help SEAs and LEAs design, implement, and evaluate their own GYO programs.

The CCNetwork’s Strengthening and Diversifying the Educator Workforce Work Group is hosting a topically aligned four-part professional learning series on GYO programs this year:

• Session 1: GYO: Funding GYO Programs, held in February, focused on strategies for funding GYO programs
• Session 2: GYO: Establishing & Sustaining Partnerships will focus on strategies for establishing and sustaining effective partnerships for GYO programs. March 27 at 12:30 p.m. ET
• Session 3: GYO: Recruiting, Mentoring, & Retaining will focus on recruiting and supporting candidates in GYO programs. May 22 at 12:30 p.m. ET
• Session 4: GYO: Data, Advocacy, & Evaluation will focus on collecting and using data to evaluate and advocate for your GYO program. Sept. 28 at 12:30 p.m. ET

Learn more about the series. The session recordings will be made available on the CCNetwork website.

National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week® 2023

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism are gearing up for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week® (NDAFW) 2023 to be held March 20-26. NIDA’s flagship health education observance is held in partnership with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). NDAFW is an annual, weeklong health observance that inspires dialogue about the science of drug use and addiction among youth. NDAFW offers educators, prevention specialists, counselors, and other youth intermediaries flexible programming to identify topics of greatest interest to their community and science-based information and resources that help improve knowledge and awareness, while also promoting skills that support informed decision-making, healthy coping, and other skills that are critical to the prevention of substance use among youth.

During NDAFW 2023, NIDA is encouraging event planners to use the Institute’s resources to help support social media, web, and email promotion. Contact NIDA at drugfacts@nida.nih.gov for assistance and to register your event. 

Lessons from the Field webinar series on Fentanyl use

Earlier this year, the Department hosted a webinar series to address topics that are on the top of educators’ minds. The series featured lessons learned and best practices from faculty, staff, schools, districts, institutions of higher education, and other places of educational instruction. It also provided a variety of useful resources. Access the session resources here:

• Part 1: Knowing the Facts About Fentanyl, Jan. 17
• Part 2: Preventing and Addressing Fentanyl Use, Feb. 8

New awards for school-based mental health  

Childhood vaccinations

According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), national vaccination coverage among kindergarten children dropped to 93% during the 2021-22 school year -- the lowest rate in the past decade. This marks a one percentage point decline since the 2019-20 school year and a two percentage point drop since the start of the pandemic. While this data might not seem substantial, it suggests that as many as 275,000 kindergartners lack full vaccine protection.

A second report found overall vaccination rates among younger children remained relatively high and stable, although there were declines among those who were poor and living in rural areas.

The CDC launched a campaign called “Let’s RISE” -- an acronym for Routine Immunizations on Schedule for Everyone -- including materials to help physicians talk to families about vaccinations, as well as information for families that have questions about vaccinations.

Early childhood education: Helping children develop to their full potential and lead healthier lives

The CDC updated their Health Impact in 5 Years webpage about early childhood education. The initiative highlights communitywide interventions that provide evidence on positive health impacts, the indicators that lead to better outcomes and results, and the cost effectiveness of the intervention.

Impact Aid 7002 and 7003 FY 2024 late application deadline reminder 

Message from the Office of Indian Education director

The Office of Indian Education (OIE) continues to put Tribal communities at the forefront of our work. We remained focused on our philosophy that “the more grantees know, the more we can accomplish together.” As we reflect on better ways to support peer-to-peer grantee learning, we encourage you to look at a past OIE technical assistance webinar, Indigenous Approaches to Logic Models and Program Evaluation.

We also encourage you to consider having students participate in this year’s Student Artist Competition, which ends March 29. You can access more information about the competition here.

We welcome you to stay connected via our OIE webpage and follow us on Twitter @OIEIndianEd! 

OIE formula grant updates

The FY 23 Electronic Application System for Indian Education (EASIE) application opened on Feb. 6 and will close on March 10. All applicants’ points of contact (POCs) should have received their unique application tokens for completion and final signatures by the authorized official representative (AOR). If you did not receive that link or need a new one, please immediately contact OIE.EASIE@ed.gov. The FY 23 EASIE Federal Register Notice is now available.

The Formula Team recently completed the following program updates:

(1) Launched an OIE EASIE Community Facebook group (screenshot above) to support grantees’ connection and collaboration. The OIE Team will also periodically post to this group, as necessary and/or relevant. Since it is a grantees’ only page, please request to join the group.

(2) Added new items to both of our other websites, Communities360° (ed.gov) and the OIE Formula Meet Our Staff page. Please continue to visit those sites on a regular basis.

(3) Significantly updated and clarified our Indian Parent Committee Approval Form to lessen grantees’ response time. The revised FY 23 form, Indian Parent Committee Approval Form (ed.gov), is now available.

Discretionary grants update

Discretionary grants in action: Members of the Discretionary Team recently visited the Waadookadaading School, which is partially funded by our Native American Language (NAL@ED) grant and pictured to the left and below. The K-8 school is the first and only Wisconsin Indian language immersion school where a Native language (Ojibwe) is the medium of instruction. The school is working toward adding 9th and 10th grades to the school with FY 20 NAL@ED funding.

Talking Circles

OIE hosts Talking Circles to provide targeted technical assistance, grant-related topics and guidance, and networking opportunities to each project director for their respective grants and to allow an open platform for grantees to meet and share ideas with one another and their program officer.

Find upcoming sessions by visiting the main webpage, select the page for a specific grant program, and view the Upcoming Events sidebar. Past Talking Circle sessions are recorded and published on our webpage.

Notice Inviting Applications for Consortium Incentive Grant

On Feb. 23, the Office of Migrant Education (OME) announced the publication of the notice inviting applications (NIA) in the Federal Register for the FY 23 Consortium Incentive Grant (CIG) program. The CIG program, authorized under section 1308(d) of the ESEA, is for SEAs operating Migrant Education Programs (MEPs) to participate in consortia designed to improve the interstate and/or intrastate coordination of MEPs by addressing the key needs of migratory children whose education is interrupted. The NIA, with more information about the grant competition, is now available.