DOE Finalizes Title I Rules
June 21, 2019
The U.S. Department of Education has finalized its “supplement not supplant” rules requiring districts to demonstrate they are using federal Title I money in addition to state and local funds, reports Linda Jacobson for Education Dive. “The guidance says districts must show the methods they use to allocate state and local funds are ‘Title I neutral,’” Jacobson writes. “In other words, schools should receive all of the state and local funds they would receive if they were not Title I schools—but districts are not required to spell out which costs or services paid for with Title I dollars are supplemental.” The article also notes that, when the DOE “issued a draft of the guidance in February, advocates for increasing resources to high-poverty schools said that it didn’t do enough to ensure that schools were using federal funds under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to truly supplement funding for schools serving more low-income families.”