WCCUSD Early Literacy Support Block Grant

  • Section 113 of the Education Omnibus Trailer Bill (Senate Bill 98) for the 2020-21 California State Budget appropriated $50 million to establish the Early Literacy Support Block (ELSB) Grant Program. The ELSB Grant Program required the California Department of Education (CDE) to award funds to local educational agencies (LEAs) with the 75 schools that had the highest percentage of students in grade three scoring at the lowest achievement standard level on the State Summative English Language Arts (ELA) assessment.

    To determine which LEAs were eligible for ELSB funds, the CDE examined the weighted average of the results for the 2018 and 2019 ELA Summative Assessment to identify the 75 schools with the highest percentage of students in grade three scoring at Level 1.

    The schools also met the following additional required criteria:

    • The school must have reported results for at least 11 students in grade three for the 2018 and 2019 ELA Summative Assessments.
    • The school must be designated as traditional in the 2018–19 California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System.

    The CDE notified all eligible LEAs on August 31, 2020, and invited them to apply for funding. 

    Bayview, Coronado, Downer, King, Lincoln, Nystrom, and Stege Elementary Schools are all receiving grant funding.

Allowable Use of Funds

  • Grant funds may be used only to fund supplemental activities and should not supplant existing activities provided by the LEA or at the eligible schools. The activities shall be targeted through inclusive improvement strategies for pupils in kindergarten and grades one to three, at eligible schools. The local educational agency literacy action plan shall be adopted at a regularly scheduled, publicly noticed meeting of the governing board or body of the local educational agency as a non-consent agenda item.

    A local educational agency shall expend grant funds only on programs or services within one or more of the following categories:

    1. Access to high-quality literacy teaching
    2. Support for literacy learning
    3. Pupil support
    4. Family and community support

Planning Year 2020-2021

  • WCCUSD applied and received an initial amount of $90,000 to develop and implement a needs assessment and root cause analysis for each school which informed the development of a required three-year Literacy Action Plan (LAP). The Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) was chosen as the Expert Lead in Literacy for this initiative. SCOE is partnered with Pivot Learning to support LEAs in identifying which strategies, programs, and/or services were most appropriate.
     
    Upon CDE approval of the Plans, the CDE disseminates the first year of funding to LEAs to implement planned activities. The second and third years of funding will be disbursed upon the review and acceptance of all annual and quarterly reporting requirements.
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End-of-Year Reports