Mississippi — United States Department of Education to the Honorable Lance Evans (January 26, 2024)

Summary

A letter dated January 26, 2024, from the Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to State Superintendent Lance Evans of the Mississippi Department of Education. It responds to the department's written plan for a reasonable level of tolerance in calculating State maintenance of equity under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The letter reports that the plan covers 35 very small local educational agencies and proposes a tolerance of up to a six percent decline in per-pupil funding. It states that the Department determined the approach is reasonable. The letter is signed by Laura Jimenez, Director, Office of State and Grantee Relations.

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Full text

                      UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
                          OFFICE OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION




                                       January 26, 2024

The Honorable Lance Evans
State Superintendent of Education
Mississippi Department of Education
P.O. Box 771
Jackson, MS 39205

Dear Superintendent Evans:

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) received your written plan for a reasonable
level of tolerance when calculating whether the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) has
met State maintenance of equity requirements in fiscal year (FY) 2023 under the American
Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP Act). This written plan applies only to a subset of Mississippi’s
local educational agencies (LEAs).

The ARP Act State maintenance of equity requirements help ensure that State funding supports
LEAs with high concentrations of poverty and students who have been subject to longstanding
opportunity gaps in our education system and experienced the greatest impact from the COVID-
19 pandemic. These requirements are vital for ensuring that States maintain funding to address
the impact of the pandemic on students’ education, and for protecting students in high-need and
highest-poverty LEAs from disproportionate cuts if reductions in State effort do occur.

The Department determined that it is consistent with the State maintenance of equity
requirements to allow a State educational agency (SEA) to calculate whether it has maintained
funding equity with respect to its very small high-need and highest-poverty LEAs within a
reasonable “tolerance level.” The Department’s determination is based on the possibility of
significant volatility in the calculated per-pupil funding amounts for very small LEAs caused by
small changes in student enrollment, which may be unrelated to whether an SEA has achieved
the intent of the requirements. (See Frequently Asked Questions, American Rescue Plan
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Program, Maintenance of Equity
Requirements, July 26, 2022, Question 21(a).)

MDE considers LEAs with an average daily attendance (ADA) of fewer than 1000 students to be
very small. Under this proposed threshold, Mississippi has 35 such LEAs. MDE asserts that
calculated per-pupil funding amounts for these very small LEAs are significantly affected by
small changes in attendance rates and students’ educational needs, making annual per-pupil
funding amounts in Mississippi’s very small LEAs an imperfect indicator of whether the SEA
has achieved the intent of maintaining equity in funding across LEAs. For its 35 very small
LEAs, MDE proposes to implement a tolerance of up to a six percent decline in per-pupil
funding. For 2023, applying this tolerance would impact one very small district that served 0.13
percent of Mississippi’s students.
After reviewing MDE’s tolerance proposal and accompanying data, the unique circumstances in
the State, and our further State-specific analysis, we have determined that this approach includes
a reasonable level of tolerance when calculating whether Mississippi has maintained equity for
small LEAs in FY 2023 and is consistent with Mississippi’s FY 2022 tolerance request.

We appreciate your diligence in developing this proposal. If you have any questions, please
contact your program officer at: Mississippi.OESE@ed.gov.

                                                   Sincerely,
aura Jimenez
                                                   Laura Jimenez

                                                   Laura Jimenez
                                                   Director, Office of State and Grantee Relations


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