[Federal Register Volume 71, Number 8 (Thursday, January 12, 2006)]
[Notices]
[Pages 2027-2029]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 06-327]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

[CFDA Nos. 84.938B and 84.938C]


Grants and Cooperative Agreements; Availability

AGENCY: Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Department of 
Education.

ACTION: Notice announcing availability of funds and application 
deadline for the Assistance for Homeless Youth program and the 
Emergency Impact Aid for Displaced Students program under sections 106 
and 107 of the Hurricane Education Recovery Act, Division B, Title IV 
of Public Law 109-148.

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SUMMARY: Under the Emergency Impact Aid for Displaced Students 
(Emergency Impact Aid) program (section 107 of the Hurricane Education 
Recovery Act, Division B, Title IV of Pub. L. 109-148 (the Act)), we 
will award grants to eligible State educational agencies (SEAs) to 
enable them to make emergency impact aid payments to eligible local 
educational agencies (LEAs) and eligible BIA-funded schools for the 
cost of educating public and nonpublic school students displaced by 
Hurricanes Katrina or Rita during school year 2005-2006. Under the 
Assistance for Homeless Youth program (section 106 of the Act), we will 
award grants to eligible SEAs to enable them to provide financial 
assistance to LEAs serving homeless children and youth displaced by 
Hurricanes Katrina or Rita in order to address the educational and 
related needs of these students in a manner consistent with section 723 
of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
    An SEA will not apply separately for funding under the Emergency 
Impact Aid and Assistance for Homeless Youth programs. Rather, an SEA 
will submit a single application that covers both programs. The data 
that the SEA provides in its application will be used to determine 
allocations under both the Emergency Impact Aid program and the 
Assistance for Homeless Youth program. In this notice, we announce the 
availability of funds under the two programs and establish the deadline 
for submission of the single SEA grant application.
    SEA Application Deadline: February 2, 2006.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: There is available to SEAs under the 
Emergency Impact Aid program a total of $645 million and under the 
Assistance for Homeless Youth program a total of $5 million. We will 
use the data on the numbers of displaced public and nonpublic students 
that the Department is collecting under this application to determine 
the amount of funding that an SEA receives under the Emergency Impact 
Aid program.
    Under the Assistance for Homeless Youth program, the Department is 
authorized to disburse funding to SEAs based on demonstrated need, as 
determined by the Secretary. The Secretary believes that the data that 
we are collecting under this application provides a reasonable and 
appropriate basis not only for allocating funds under the Emergency 
Impact Aid program, but also for determining the relative needs of SEAs 
for funding for public school students under the Assistance for

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Homeless Youth program. Therefore, in order to minimize the burden on 
SEAs, we will use data on the numbers of displaced public school 
students that the Department is collecting under this application to 
make allocations under the Assistance for Homeless Youth program.
    Available Funds under the Emergency Impact Aid program: 
$645,000,000.
    Available Funds under the Assistance for Homeless Youth program: 
$5,000,000.
    Period of Fund Availability under the Emergency Impact Aid program: 
SEAs, LEAs, and BIA-funded schools must obligate funds received under 
section 107 of the Act by July 31, 2006. The SEA must return to the 
Department any funds that are not obligated by SEAs, LEAs, or BIA-
funded schools by this deadline.
    Period of Fund Availability under the Assistance for Homeless Youth 
program: LEAs have until September 30, 2007 to obligate funds received 
under section 106 of the Act. We strongly encourage SEAs to make these 
funds available to LEAs at the earliest possible date. Furthermore, we 
strongly encourage LEAs that receive assistance under this program to 
obligate the funds in a timely fashion to address the immediate needs 
of homeless students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina or Rita.
    LEA Application Deadline under the Emergency Impact Aid program: 
For the Emergency Impact Aid program, the Act requires LEAs to apply to 
their SEAs for funds no later than 14 days after the date of 
publication of this notice (i.e., no later than January 26, 2006.
    LEA Application Deadline under the Assistance for Homeless Youth 
program: There is no statutory deadline for LEA applications under this 
program. Rather, each SEA that receives funding under the Assistance 
for Homeless Youth program will set a reasonable deadline for the 
submission of LEA applications. The SEA will distribute funds to LEAs 
based on demonstrated need, for the purposes of carrying out section 
723 of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
    Student Enrollment Data: In the application for SEA funding, we 
request quarterly data on the numbers of displaced students enrolled in 
public, nonpublic, and BIA-funded schools as of four different count 
dates. SEAs will report separate counts of students without 
disabilities and students with disabilities. SEAs are required to 
submit data for the first quarterly count in the initial applications. 
The Department encourages SEAs to provide enrollment data for the first 
two quarters of the 2005-2006 school year (i.e., the two quarters that 
will have passed as of the date the SEA applications are due) in the 
initial applications. SEAs and LEAs that meet the initial deadlines may 
provide enrollment data for the subsequent quarters of the 2005-2006 
school year at later dates.
    We will use the enrollment data that are included in the SEA 
application to make initial payments under the Emergency Impact Aid 
program. In addition, we intend to use a portion of this data to make 
allocations under the Assistance for Homeless Youth program. 
Specifically, we intend to use the data on displaced public school 
students during the first two quarters, as reported in the SEA 
applications, to make final allocations under the Assistance for 
Homeless Youth program.
    We also are aware that it may take some time for SEAs and LEAs to 
count, retroactively for the first and second quarters of the 2005-2006 
school year, all students who may have now moved to other States or 
districts. Therefore, SEAs and LEAs that meet these specified timelines 
may make upward or downward revisions to their initial child counts in 
the event that they collect more satisfactory data that were not 
available at the time of their initial application submission. If the 
Secretary determines that an SEA has received an initial payment that 
is less than or in excess of what it should have received under the 
Emergency Impact Aid program for any quarter, the Secretary will make 
appropriate upward or downward revisions to subsequent payments that 
the SEA is eligible to receive this year. If the SEA is not eligible 
for subsequent payments, the SEA must promptly refund the amount of any 
overpayment to the Secretary. SEAs must submit any application 
amendments affecting allocations under the Emergency Impact Aid program 
to the Department no later than April 30, 2006.
    Given the much lower funding level under the Assistance to Homeless 
Youth program, however, we do not intend to make multiple payments 
under that program or to use revised data to make adjustments to 
allocations under the program.
    Other Requirements: LEAs must make Emergency Impact Aid payments to 
accounts on behalf of displaced nonpublic school students within 14 
calendar days of receiving payments from the SEAs.
    The Secretary may solicit from any applicant at any time during the 
respective periods of availability additional information needed to 
process an application for either program. In addition, all displaced 
public school students included in the counts in the SEA application 
must participate in State accountability systems consistent with the 
guidance letter to States from Secretary Margaret Spellings on 
September 29, 2005. (http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/secletter/050929.html)
    Waiver of Proposed Rulemaking: Under the Administrative Procedure 
Act (APA) (5 U.S.C. 553), the Department generally offers interested 
parties the opportunity to comment on proposed program requirements. 
Section 437(d)(2) of the General Education Provisions Act (20 U.S.C. 
1232(d)(2)), however, allows the Secretary to exempt from rulemaking 
requirements regulations where the Secretary determines that conducting 
rulemaking will cause extreme hardship to the intended beneficiaries of 
the program or programs affected by the regulations.
    The Secretary has determined that conducting rulemaking for the 
Assistance for Homeless Youth and Emergency Impact Aid programs, 
including the procedures permitting SEAs and LEAs to amend their 
applications to submit revised student count data and allowing for 
upward or downward adjustment of subsequent payments under the 
Emergency Impact Aid program and the procedures for awarding funds 
under the Assistance for Homeless Youth program, would cause extreme 
hardship to the beneficiaries of these programs for several significant 
reasons. The Act was signed into law on December 30, 2005, and 
specifies very tight timelines that SEAs and LEAs must meet to receive 
assistance under the Emergency Impact Aid program. Specifically, the 
Act requires the collection and submission of extremely time-critical 
student data and related information in applications from SEAs that 
will reflect data from LEAs, BIA-funded schools, and parents of 
displaced nonpublic school children. The Emergency Impact Aid program's 
purpose is to provide immediate aid for the costs related to the 
education of these displaced students for the 2005-2006 school year, 
and the Act further requires that the recipients obligate all funds by 
the end of 2005-2006 school year.
    Furthermore, SEAs and LEAs throughout the country have tremendous 
needs and expenses related to educating homeless students displaced by 
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It is essential, therefore, that the 
Department also award funding under the Assistance for Homeless Youth 
program at the earliest possible date. Therefore, in order to avoid 
further

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harm and hardship to applicants under either program and make timely 
grant awards, the Secretary is waiving rulemaking for these one-time 
programs under the Act.
    Electronic Submission of Applications: An eligible SEA that seeks 
funding under the Assistance for Homeless Youth program and the 
Emergency Impact Aid program, as authorized under sections 106 and 107 
of the Act, must submit its application to the Department on or before 
February 2, 2006, no later than 4:30 p.m., Washington, DC time. You 
must submit your initial application electronically using the 
Department's Electronic Grant Application System (e-Application) 
available through the Department's e-Grants system. You may not e-mail 
an electronic copy of a grant application to us.
    You can access the electronic application for the Assistance for 
Homeless Youth and Emergency Impact Aid programs at: http://e-grants.ed.gov.
    Once you access this site, you will receive specific instructions 
regarding the information to include in your application. The regular 
hours of operation of the e-Application Web site are 6 a.m. Monday 
until 7 p.m. Wednesday; and 6 a.m. Thursday until midnight, Saturday 
(Washington, DC time). Please note that the system is unavailable on 
Sundays.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For the Emergency Impact Aid program: 
Ms. Catherine Schagh, Director, Impact Aid Program, U.S. Department of 
Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20202-6244. 
Telephone: (202) 260-3858 or via the Internet: [email protected]. For 
the Assistance for Homeless Youth program: Mr. Gary Rutkin, Program 
Officer, Homeless Children and Youth Program, U.S. Department of 
Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20202-6244. 
Telephone: (202) 260-4412 or via the Internet: [email protected].
    If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD), you may 
call the Federal Relay Service (FRS) at 1-800-877-8339. Individuals 
with disabilities may obtain the application package in an alternative 
format (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, or computer diskette) on 
request to one of the contact persons listed in this section.
    Electronic Access to This Document: You may view this document, as 
well as other Department of Education documents published in the 
Federal Register, in text or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) on 
the Internet at the following site: http://www.ed.gov/news/fedregister.
    To use PDF you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available 
free at this site. If you have questions about using PDF, call the U.S. 
Government Printing Office (GPO), toll free, at 1-888-293-6498; or in 
the Washington, DC, area at (202) 512-1530.

    Note: The official version of this document is the document 
published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the 
official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal 
Regulations is available on GPO Access at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/nara/index.html.


    Program Authority: Division B, Title IV of Pub. L. 109-148.

    Dated: January 10, 2006.
Henry L. Johnson,
Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.
[FR Doc. 06-327 Filed 1-10-06; 12:50 pm]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P