Letter to the Vermont Agency of Education — Reasonable Level of Tolerance (February 1, 2024)

Summary

This is a letter dated February 1, 2024 from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the United States Department of Education to Heather Bouchey, Interim Secretary of Education at the Vermont Agency of Education (VTAOE). The letter states that the Department received VTAOE's written plan for a reasonable level of tolerance when calculating whether Vermont met State maintenance of equity requirements in fiscal year (FY) 2023 for a subset of its local educational agencies. It states that VTAOE proposes a tolerance of up to a 5 percent decline in per-pupil funding for small LEAs, defined as those with an Average Daily Membership of fewer than 1,260 students. It states that the Department determined the approach includes a reasonable level of tolerance for small LEAs in FY 2023.

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                      UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
                          OFFICE OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION




                                        February 1, 2024

The Honorable Heather Bouchey
Interim Secretary of Education
Vermont Agency of Education
1 National Life Drive, Davis 5
Montpelier, VT 05620

Dear Secretary Bouchey:

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) received your written plan for a reasonable
level of tolerance when calculating whether the Vermont Agency of Education (VTAOE) 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 Vermont’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).)

Vermont considers LEAs with an Average Daily Membership (ADM) of fewer than 1,260
students to be small. Under this proposed threshold, Vermont has 23 small LEAs out of 51 LEAs
statewide. The VTAOE asserts that calculated per-pupil funding amounts for these small LEAs
are significantly affected by minor changes in enrollment rates and students’ educational needs.
This makes annual per-pupil funding amounts in Vermont’s small LEAs an imperfect indicator
of whether the SEA has achieved the intent of maintaining equity in funding across LEAs. For its
23 small LEAs, the VTAOE proposes to implement a tolerance of up to a 5 percent decline in
per-pupil funding. For FY 2023, applying this tolerance would impact three small LEAs,
identified by the State as meeting the definition of high-need or highest-poverty in FY 2023, that
served 3.54 percent of Vermont’s students.
After reviewing the VTAOE’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 Vermont has
maintained equity for small LEAs in FY 2023.

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

                                                   Sincerely,
    aura Jimenez
                                                   Laura Jimenez

                                                   Laura Jimenez
                                                   Director, Office of State and Grantee Relations


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