Title II Allowable Uses of Funds

Allowable Uses of Funds [ESEA Section 2103 or 20 U.S.C. § 6613]

An LEA that receives Title II.A shall use the funds to develop, implement, and evaluate comprehensive programs and activities that address the learning needs of all students, including students with disabilities, ELs, and gifted and talented students and may include

1. developing or improving a rigorous, transparent, and fair evaluation and support system for teachers, principals, or other school leaders that:
   1. is based in part on evidence of student achievement, which may include student growth; and
   2. shall include multiple measures of educator performance and provide clear, timely, and useful feedback to teachers, principals, or other school leaders.
2. developing and implementing initiatives to assist in recruiting, hiring, and retaining effective teachers, particularly in economically deprived schools with high percentages of ineffective teachers and high percentages of students who do not meet the MLS and to improve equity in the distribution of teachers within the LEA. Such initiatives may include
   1. expert help in screening candidates and enabling early hiring;
   2. teacher, paraprofessional, principal, or other school leader advancement and professional growth and an emphasis on leadership opportunities, multiple career paths;
   3. new teacher, principal, or other school leader induction and mentoring programs that are designed to:
      1. improve classroom instruction and student learning and achievement; and
      2. increase the retention of effective teachers, principals, or other school leaders.
   4. the development and provision of training for school leaders, coaches, mentors, and evaluators on how accurately to differentiate performance, provide useful feedback, and use evaluation results to inform decision making about professional development, improvement strategies, and personnel decisions; and
   5. a system for auditing the quality of evaluation and support systems.
3. recruiting qualified individuals from other fields to become teachers, principals, or other school leaders, including mid-career professionals from other occupations, former military personnel, and recent graduates of institutions of higher education with records of academic distinction who demonstrate potential to become effective teachers, principals, or other school leaders;
4. reducing class size to a level that is evidence-based, to the extent the state (in consultation with LEAs in the state) determines that such evidence is reasonably available, to improve student achievement through the recruiting and hiring of additional effective teachers;
5. providing high-quality, evidence-based, personalized professional development for teachers, instructional leadership teams, principals, or other school leaders, focused on improving teaching and student learning and achievement, including supporting efforts to train teachers, principals, or other school leaders to
   1. effectively integrate technology into curricula and instruction (including education about the harms of copyright piracy);
   2. use data to improve student achievement and understand how to ensure individual student privacy is protected;
   3. effectively engage parents or guardians, families, and community partners and coordinate services between school and community;
   4. help all students develop the skills essential for learning readiness and academic success;
   5. develop policy with school, LEA, community or state leaders; and
   6. participate in opportunities for experiential learning through observation.
6. developing programs and activities that increase the ability of teachers to effectively teach students with disabilities, including students with significant cognitive disabilities and ELs, which may include the use of multi-tier systems of support and positive behavioral intervention and supports, so such students with disabilities and ELs can meet the challenging state academic standards;
7. providing programs and activities to increase
   1. the knowledge base of teachers, principals, or other school leaders on instruction in the early grades and on strategies to measure whether young students are progressing; and
   2. the ability of principals or other school leaders to support teachers, teacher leaders, early childhood educators, and other professionals to meet the needs of students through age 8, which may include providing joint professional learning and planning activities for school staff and educators in preschool programs that address the transition to elementary school.
8. providing training, technical assistance, and capacity building in LEAs to assist teachers, principals, or other school leaders with selecting and implementing formative assessments, designing classroom-based assessments, and using data from such assessments to improve instruction and student academic achievement, which may include providing additional time for teachers to review student data and respond, as appropriate;
9. carrying out professional development for school personnel in
   1. addressing the techniques and supports needed to help educators understand when and how to refer students affected by trauma and students with, or at-risk of, mental illness;
   2. addressing the use of referral mechanisms that effectively link such students to appropriate treatment and intervention services in the school and in the community, where appropriate;
   3. forming partnerships between school-based mental health programs and public or private mental health organizations; and
   4. addressing issues related to school conditions for student learning, such as safety, peer interaction, drug and alcohol abuse, and chronic absenteeism.
10. providing training to support the identification of students who are gifted and talented, including high-ability students who have not been formally identified for gifted education services and implementing instructional practices that support the education of such students, such as
    1. enrichment, acceleration, and curriculum compacting activities; and
    2. dual or concurrent enrollment programs in secondary school and postsecondary education.
11. supporting the instructional services provided by effective school library programs;
12. providing training for all school personnel, including teachers, principals, other school leaders, specialized instructional support personnel and paraprofessionals, regarding how to prevent and recognize child sexual abuse;
13. developing and providing professional development and other comprehensive systems of support for teachers, principals, or other school leaders to promote high-quality instruction and instructional leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects, including computer science;
14. developing feedback mechanisms to improve school working conditions, including through periodically and publicly reporting results of educator support and working conditions feedback;
15. providing high-quality professional development for teachers, principals, or other school leaders on effective strategies to integrate rigorous academic content, career and technical education, and work-based learning (if appropriate), which may include providing common planning time, to help prepare students for postsecondary education and the workforce; and 16. carrying out other activities that are evidence-based, to the extent the state (in consultation with LEAs in the state) determines such evidence is reasonably available and identified by the LEA that meet the purpose of this title.

Supplement Not Supplant [ESEA Section 2212 or 20 U.S.C. § 6632]

LEAs are required to maintain documentation needed to rebut supplanting. This documentation should include local board of education action, budget histories and information, and fiscal or programmatic documentation to confirm that, in the absence of federal funds, the LEA would have eliminated staff or other services in question.

DESE will presume supplanting has occurred if the LEA used federal funds to provide services that

1. were required to be made available under other federal,state, or local laws; and/or
2. were provided with nonfederal funds in the prior year.

For the first two items, the presumption of supplanting may be rebutted if the LEA demonstrates it would not have provided services with nonfederal funds if the federal funds were not available. The LEA cannot rebut the third item.

Nonpublic

For all federal programs, equitable services shall be consistent with the number of eligible students. This means the LEA must allocate the same amount per pupil for all students, both public and nonpublic.

Consultation

The LEA must also engage in timely and meaningful consultation with nonpublic schools located within the LEA boundaries to provide for equitable participation of nonpublic school teachers and other educational personnel in nonpublic schools. The LEA must maintain and