SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAMS
The U.S. Department of Education recently announced applications for two new competitive grant programs (using School Safety National Activities funds) focused on ensuring school facilities provide safe, healthy, sustainable, and equitable learning environments:
- The Supporting America’s Schools Infrastructure (SASI) Grant The purpose of this program is to award approximately $40 million to increase the capacity of States to support high-need local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools in leveraging other available Federal, State, and local resources to improve school facilities and environments through public school infrastructure improvements to ensure that their public school facilities are safe, healthy, sustainable, and equitable learning environments for all students.
- The National Center on School Infrastructure (NCSI) Grant The purpose of the NCSI program will award roughly $2 million to establish a national center on school infrastructure that will serve as a clearinghouse of resources for States and LEAs related to improving and developing safe, healthy, sustainable, and equitable public school infrastructure through public school infrastructure improvements, and provide technical assistance (TA) to SASI grantees and high-need LEAs seeking to leverage available resources to improve public school facilities for all students.
Applications for both programs will close on August 7, 2023. For more information, including pre-application webinars, eligibility, and applicant information, see the SASI and NCSI webpages.
The Department has released Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on topics related to the FY 2023 School Infrastructure Programs (SIP) grant competitions. If you have additional questions after reviewing these resources, please email oese.school.infrastructure@ed.gov.
CLEAN SCHOOL BUS PROGRAM
The 2023 Clean School Bus (CSB) Grant Program Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is currently open! The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the first grant funding opportunity through the multi-year funding program and follows last year’s CSB Rebate Program, which was the first round of funding.
EPA anticipates awarding approximately $400 million in competitive grant funding to eligible applicants for the purchase of zero-emission (ZE) school buses, clean school buses, and ZE charging infrastructure.
All application packages need to be submitted electronically to EPA through Grants.gov no later than Tuesday, August 22, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. (ET) to be considered for funding.
The CSB program statute enables the program to target communities with environmental justice concerns, that is, communities adversely and disproportionately affected by environmental, climate change, and human health harms or risks, and support a broad geographic distribution of funds.
EPA is prioritizing applications that will replace buses serving high-need local education agencies, rural areas, Tribal school districts funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and public school districts receiving basic support payments for students living on Tribal land, and rural areas. Additionally, CSB has been identified as part of the Justice40 Initiative, which provides a goal that 40 percent of applicable federal benefits flow to disadvantaged communities.
The next event related to the Clean School Bus Program regarding “Grant Forms, Popular Q&A, and Optional Attachments” will be on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, at 3:00 p.m. (ET). Click here to register.
To learn more about how to prepare for this funding opportunity, please click below.
https://www.epa.gov/cleanschoolbus/clean-school-bus-program-grants
~CASH Staff
