HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – More than 200 rural schools across Montana will no longer be facing potential funding cuts for the 2020-2021 school year after the Department of Education backed down on proposed eligibility changes for the Rural Low-Income Schools Program.
The loss of funds would have come because of changes for eligibility requirements to the federal Rural and Low-Income School Program.
Currently, the US Department of Education allows schools to use data on free and reduced lunches to qualify for the program. However, they said they would longer accept that data, instead requiring schools to use Small Area Income and Poverty Estimate census data.
Havre Public Schools has been reported as a school in line to lose around $25,000 in elementary school funding, but Superintendent Andy Carlson told New Media Broadcasters they haven’t been eligible for these funds since the 2016-17 school year.
“Success Maker went away, we used that, IXL went away, and we had to shift where we had our Renaissance dollars. It won’t mean much of anything to people that don’t know what Success Maker was or what IXL was, and if you weren’t a classroom teacher using those or a kid impacted by it The other part of it is when you have to move STAR or something else to another fund it impacts something else, so there’s domino effects.”
Senator Jon Tester recently sent a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy Devos criticizing her Department’s decision, and has introduced legislation to preserve funding for rural schools. Tester says 220 schools in Montana could be impacted.
Both of Montana’s Senators expressed their approval of the Education Department’s delay in the rule change, sending out press releases on Wednesday afternoon.
The change is now scheduled to go into effect for the 2021-22 school year.
