Dr. Wendy McColskey (SERVE Center) received new funding from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction for the project “Extended Learning and Integrated Students Supports (ELISS).”
In May 2020, the North Carolina General Assembly passed House Bill 1043, otherwise known as the “2020 COVID-19 Recovery Act” [Session Law 2020-4—Section 3.3 (18)]. The purpose of this legislation was to allow the state of North Carolina to assist local governments, communities, families, workers, and other individuals and businesses in accessing federal relief and recovery funds related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The legislation allocated $5 million to the Department of Public Instruction for the Extended Learning and Integrated Student Supports (ELISS) Competitive Grant Program.
According to the legislation, “the purpose of the Program is to fund high-quality, independently validated extended learning and integrated student support service programs for at-risk students whose learning has been negatively affected by COVID-19 impacts.” However, since the original source of these funds are from the federal government in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, these funds have a limited period of availability – in that all funds allocated from this legislation must be incurred during the period that begins on March 1, 2020, and ends on December 30, 2020.
SERVE outlines work proposed in three areas: (1) supporting NCDPI in the internal grant application/addendum review process, (2) providing technical assistance in support of grantee program implementation, and (3) managing the required grantee reporting processes, including development of the final report due to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee in February of 2021.
