Rhode Island — United States Department of Education to the Honorable Angélica Infante-Green (January 29, 2024)

Summary

A letter dated January 29, 2024, from the Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to Commissioner Infante-Green of the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. It responds to the written plan for a reasonable level of tolerance in calculating State maintenance of equity under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The plan covers 27 small districts with fewer than 600 students and proposes a tolerance of up to a 17 percent decline in per-pupil funding. The letter states that Rhode Island will need to make an additional payment to one local educational agency, and it 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 29, 2024

The Honorable Angélica Infante-Green
Commissioner
Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
255 Westminster St.
Providence, RI 02903

Dear Commissioner Infante-Green:

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) received your written plan for a reasonable
level of tolerance when calculating whether the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education (RIDE) 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 Rhode Island’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).)

RIDE’s proposal considers LEAs with memberships of fewer than 600 students and that receive
formula funding based upon the characteristics of various sending LEAs to be small. Under this
proposed threshold, Rhode Island has 27 such LEAs. RIDE asserts that calculated per-pupil
funding amounts for these small LEAs are significantly affected by small changes in attendance
rates and students’ educational needs. This makes the annual per-pupil funding amounts in
Rhode Island’s small districts an imperfect indicator of whether the SEA has achieved the intent
of maintaining equity in funding across LEAs. For its 27 small districts, RIDE proposes to
implement a tolerance of up to a 17 percent decline in per-pupil funding. For FY 2023, applying
this tolerance would impact five small districts that served 0.89 percent of Rhode Island’s
students.
After reviewing RIDE’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 Rhode Island has maintained equity for
small LEAs in FY 2023 and is consistent with RIDE’s FY 2022 tolerance request.

Based on data provided by RIDE, Rhode Island will need to make an additional payment to one
LEA that experienced disproportionate reductions in per-pupil funding in FY 2023. Please advise
the Department when this additional payment has been made.

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

                                                   Sincerely,
    aura Jimenez
                                                   Laura Jimenez

                                                   Laura Jimenez
                                                   Director, Office of State and Grantee Relations


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