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Programs and Grants – SST

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Technology

Technical Assistance

School Facilities Renovation and Financing

Other Programs

Flexibility and Waivers

Archived Technical Assistance and Technology Programs – Programs that are no longer authorized. Funds support only the continuation of multi-year projects.

School Support and Rural Programs

School Support and Rural Programs (SSRP) provide funds for education technology, school facilities, parent information assistance centers, and comprehensive education assistance centers. Our office also administers the implementation of flexibility provisions in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Evaluation Guide

NewEvaluation Matters is a free guide to help educators and administrators with little or no formal training in evaluation become active partners with their evaluators to ensure that evaluations are tailored to the needs of states, school districts, and schools.

Evaluation Matters: Getting the Information You Need from Your Evaluation (Draft)

Evaluation Matters explains how to build evaluation into program planning and decision-making step by step. A draft version is provided so that grantees, educators, technical assistance providers, and others can start using the guide and send us suggestions on ways to improve it. The guide provides electronic hyperlinks to additional resources, including observation protocols, surveys, rubrics, and other evaluation instruments, as well as publications on evaluation design, logic models, data collection and analysis, ethical issues, pitfalls to avoid, and using findings for program improvement. Though examples show how educators could use evaluation in everyday practice for technology programs, the principles and steps in the guide can be used to evaluate all kinds of education programs.

Download the Complete Evaluation Guide

Evaluation Matters

PDF (3.5MB)

 

 

 

 

School Support and Rural Programs (SSRP)
Room 3W205
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202-6400
Phone: 202-401-0039
Fax: 202-205-5870

SRSA Eligibility

Below is the link to the current version of the REAP Master Eligibility Spreadsheet. Please review the information and contact your REAP State Coordinator with updates.

Click Here: Fiscal Year 2023 Master Eligibility Spreadsheet 

  • Please note that if your LEA has submitted a request to update its primary contact or other LEA information, it may take up to a week to see that change reflected on the Master Eligibility Spreadsheet here.

Who is Eligible?

An LEA is eligible to participate in the SRSA program if it meets the statutory criteria of being both small and rural (see ESEA section 5211(b)).

  1. To be considered small, an LEA must have a total average daily attendance (ADA) of fewer than 600 students or exclusively serve schools that are located in counties with a population density of fewer than 10 persons per square mile.
  2. To be considered rural, all schools within the LEA must have a school locale code of 41, 42, or 43 (assigned by the Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)) or be located in an area of the State defined as rural by a governmental agency of the State.

In some States, the entity legally established to administer the SRSA program is an educational service agency (ESA), which is defined in section 8101(18) of the ESEA as “a regional public multiservice agency authorized by State statute to develop, manage, and provide services or programs to [LEAs].” Section 5211(b)(1)(C) of the ESEA clarifies that an individual LEA within an ESA may apply for and receive SRSA grant funds if that LEA meets the SRSA eligibility criteria and the ESA to which it belongs does not itself receive an SRSA award on its behalf.

Being eligible for the SRSA program does not guarantee that the LEA will receive an award. If the LEA wishes to receive a grant award, it must comply with any requirements established by the Department to receive an SRSA award for a fiscal year (FY), including any application requirements. Additionally, an LEA may be eligible for SRSA but receive an allocation of $0 based on the funding formula (i.e., may not receive an SRSA award).

To find your LEA’s locale code, visit the National Center for Education Statistics’ locale lookup tool on their website. For more information on how locale codes are determined, visit the NCES Locale Boundaries User Manual.

To see how SRSA differs from RLIS, view the SRSA-RLIS Comparison Table.

Eligibility Spreadsheets for Previous Years

The spreadsheets in the red box above list, by state, all LEAs that have been eligible for awards in previous years. Please note that data in some of the columns were used for informational purposes only (e.g., column Y) and were not used in determining allocations.

Eligibility Spreadsheets FY 2017

 

To view the list of districts eligible for the Small Rural School Achievement (SRSA) grant and the Rural Low-Income Schools (RLIS) grant, open the Excel file below.

 

To view the list of local education agencies that have been identified as eligible for the Small Rural School Achievement (SRSA) grant and the Rural Low-Income Schools (RLIS) grant, open the Excel file below.

 

Eligibility Spreadsheet Legend

This table describes the information in each column of the eligibility spreadsheet linked above.

Column Content
(Columns A-J) National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) – District directory information reported to NCES by State Common Core of Data (CCD) Coordinators
(Columns K-N) Final Eligibility Determinations – These are the final eligibility determinations for every district for the SRSA (including those under Hold Harmless) and RLIS grants. These determinations are based on the data found in columns “S” through “AC.”
(Columns S-T) “Rural” criteria for SRSA and RLIS, including the NCES locale code determinations for every school in the district and the state designation of districts that meet an approved state definition of “rural”
(Columns U-W) SRSA criteria for program eligibility – Districts that are both “rural” (by locale code) and “small” (by ADA or county population density of < 10 per square mile)
(Columns X-AA) RLIS criteria for program eligibility – Districts that are both “rural” (by locale code) and “low income” (by percentage of children above 20% poverty)
(Columns AB-AC) These are the prior year Title II Part A and Title IV Part A allocations. These numbers are used in the allocation formula for the SRSA grant.

 

NOTE: Local education agencies (LEAs) are listed first by state, then by LEA name.

 

New Master Eligibility Spreadsheet (all states) (Excel, 7.2MB)

Eligibility Spreadsheets FY 2016

 

To review the list of districts eligible for the Small Rural School Achievement program, open the Excel file below for your state, find the tabs at the bottom of the workbook, and select the tab labeled SRSA.

Note: These spreadsheets do not reflect any locale code tests requested by states on behalf of districts.
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Eligibility Spreadsheets FY 2015

 

To review the list of districts eligible for the Small Rural School Achievement program, open the Excel file below for your state, find the tabs at the bottom of the workbook, and select the tab labeled SRSA.

Note: These spreadsheets do not reflect any locale code tests requested by states on behalf of districts.

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FY 2016 LEAs Eligible for the Rural Low-Income School Program

 

To review the list of districts eligible for the Rural and Low-Income School program, open the Excel file below for your state, find the tabs at the bottom of the workbook, and select the tab labeled RLIS.
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SRSA Performance

Monitoring

Purpose

The Rural Education Achievement Program is committed to supporting LEAs as they implement Federal grant programs. Part of this commitment includes implementing a monitoring process designed to not only address REAP’s responsibilities for fiscal and programmatic oversight, but to also identify areas in which LEAs need assistance and support to meet their goals and obligations.

The REAP monitoring process for LEAs receiving Title V, Part B funds is intended to be LEA-centered and is conducted either on-site or virtually. As part of regular monitoring, the REAP team reviews an LEA’s grant administration and fiscal management processes, based on information provided through the monitoring process, and other relevant qualitative and quantitative data. The primary goal of monitoring is to ensure that implementation of the SRSA program is consistent with the fiscal, administrative, and select program requirements contained in the Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (Uniform Guidance: 2 Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.) Part 200), the Education Department General Administrative Requirements (EDGAR), and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended.

Monitoring Reports

All monitoring reports are provided in the table below and assess an LEA’s grant administration and fiscal management processes, based on information provided through the review process, and other relevant qualitative and quantitative data. Monitoring reports are designed to communicate to LEAs and stakeholders the status of program implementation, noting areas where the LEA is excelling and areas that require attention.

LOCAL EDUCATIONAL AGENCY STATE FISCAL YEAR REPORT
Alton School District NH 2020 PDF
Attica Consolidated School Corporation IN 2022 PDF
Bement CUSD 5 IL 2020 PDF
Continental Local Schools OH 2021 PDF
Resolution
Dongola Unit District #66 IL 2021 PDF
Eminence R-1 MO 2020 PDF
Green Township School District NJ 2021 PDF
Hazen School District AR 2022 PDF
Highmore-Harrold School District 34-2 SD 2020 PDF
Mexicayotl Academy AZ 2022 PDF
Morrill Public School NE 2020 PDF
North Wood R-IV MO 2020 PDF
Polo CUSD 222 IL 2020 PDF
Trinity Alps Unified School District CA 2021 PDF
Westbrook Walnut Grove ISD 2898 MN 2021 PDF

Small, Rural School Achievement Program

The purpose of the Small, Rural School Achievement (SRSA) program is to provide rural local educational agencies (LEAs) with financial assistance to fund initiatives aimed at improving student academic achievement.

LEAs are entitled to funds if they meet basic eligibility and application requirements. Awards are issued annually, and award amounts are determined using a formula.

Uses of Funds

Grantees may use SRSA funds to carry out activities authorized under any of the following federal programs: Video

Example: A school district develops an entrepreneurial education program to supplement its civics curriculum.
Example: A school district pays the stipend for a prospective teacher to work alongside an effective teacher, who is the teacher of record, for a full academic year.
Example: A school district offers an afterschool enrichment program for English learners.
Example: A school district purchases a bully prevention program for all schools.
Example: A school district purchases instruments to supplement schools’ band and orchestra programs.

See the Uses of Funds Guide for the SRSA and and RLIS programs to better understand the allowable uses of funds specific to each program.

Alternative Fund Use Authority (AFUA)

The Alternative Fund Use Authority allows SRSA-eligible LEAs greater flexibility in spending the funds they receive under Title II, Part A and Title IV, Part A to best address the LEA’s particular needs. Under AFUA, LEAs are able to use their Title II, Part A and Title IV, Part A funds to pay for activities under any of the allowable uses for SRSA grant funds. (See Section 5211(a) of the ESEA, as amended, for more information.)

  • An SRSA-eligible LEA does not have to apply for SRSA funds may exercise AUFA.
  • An LEA that is eligible for both SRSA and RLIS funds may exercise AUFA even if the LEA chooses to participate in RLIS instead of SRSA.
  • Before exercising AUFA, an eligible LEA must notify its SEA of its intent to do so by the deadline established by the SEA.  Eligible LEAs should reach out to their REAP State Coordinator contact for more information about the SEA’s reporting requirements deadline.

REAP Funding Status

Appropriations

Amount of funding Congress approved for the Rural Education Achievement Program, by year. Also see how the REAP team distributes the funds between its two grant programs; SRSA and RLIS.

Fiscal Year REAP Funding (total) SRSA Funding Portion RLIS Funding Portion
2022 $195,000,000 $97,500,000 $97,500,000
2021 $187,840,000 $93,920,000 $93,920,000
2020 $185,840,000 $92,920,000 $92,920,000
2019 $180,840,000 $90,420,000 $90,420,000
2018 $180,840,000 $90,420,000 $90,420,000
2017 $175,840,000 $87,920,000 $87,920,000
2016 $175,840,000 $87,920,000 $87,920,000
2015 $169,840,000 $84,920,000 $84,920,000
2014 $169,840,000 $84,920,000 $84,920,000
2013 $169,840,000 $84,920,000 $84,920,000
2012 $179,193,000 $89,596,500 $89,596,500
2011 $174,532,000 $87,266,000 $87,266,000
2010 $174,882,000 $87,441,000 $87,441,000
2009 $173,382,000 $86,691,000 $86,691,000
2008 $171,854,000 $85,927,000 $85,927,000
2007 $168,919,000 $84,459,500 $84,459,500
2006 $168,919,000 $84,459,500 $84,459,500
2005 $170,624,000 $85,312,000 $85,312,000
2004 $167,831,000 $83,915,500 $83,915,500
2003 $167,653,000 $83,826,500 $83,826,500
2002 $162,500,000 $81,250,000 $81,250,000