Below is an email sent Friday evening to all school districts by Secil Onat, Assistant Commissioner at the New Jersey Department of Education. Here she references the state’s “Learning Acceleration Program: High-Impact Tutoring Grant,” a program funded by $52 million of federal COVID money and intended to address the staggering amount of learning loss endured by children through COVID school closures and remote instruction. (According to last year’s test scores only 42% of NJ third-graders read proficiently.)

The high-dosage tutoring grant program was announced eight months ago; the deadline for the DOE to notify districts whether they did or did not win grants was October 11th, a deadline that was not met. Yet this email gives no information about when, exactly, districts will be able to access funding.. District leaders are frustrated; Senate President Teresa Ruiz commented, “There is no sense of urgency from the state in creating an expedited, resourced, and tried program to help support our teachers and our students in this post-pandemic time.”

Are all states are having problems getting these essential programs started? Nope: early last week the Washington Post ran a piece on Virginia’s high-dosage tutoring program called All in VA Education Plan for “3–8 grade students that are ‘at risk’ or ‘not proficient’ based on statewide assessment results.” The plan was announced six weeks ago and implementation began last week (although some district leaders say they’re having trouble finding enough tutors). And the state is backing the program up with $418 million.

Virginia has  1,263,342 students. New Jersey has 1,321,709 students. Yet the VA government has allotted more than nine times as much funding to its tutoring initiative than NJ has and is acting with urgency through meeting deadlines and providing clear guidance to school districts. (If anything, district leaders are complaining the pace is too swift.)

Meanwhile, Gov. Murphy’s DOE, according to the email below, “continues to prioritize the expeditious review of all competitive applications for award” as students loose time to recover from learning loss.

Translation: Ignore that Oct. 11th deadline and we have no idea when you’ll be able to get started on what, eight months ago, Gov. Murphy called his administration’s “top priority.”

Maurice Township School District superintendent Jeremy Cohen told Advance Media, “we have not gotten any word nor any notice from the state of funds being approved. We have not been able to start the tutoring yet, even in-house.” Also, he’s heard the DOE may require districts to solicit bids for tutoring vendors, even if the vendors are already on the DOE’s list of approved vendors. “No one seems to have the answer at this point,” he said. “It seems to be a waiting game.”

I asked one school administrator what she gleaned from the email about when the DOE will notify districts about whether they will get grants. “We don’t know!,” she said.

Meanwhile, this is what the DOE is posting on social media today:

Here’s the email:

Date: October 20, 2023 

To: Local Educational Agency Leads 

Route To: School Business Administrators, Grants Managers  

From: Secil Onat, Assistant Commissioner 

Division of Finance and Business Services 

Procurement Guidance Regarding High-Impact Tutoring Grant Vendors 

Overview 

The New Jersey Learning Acceleration Program: High-Impact Tutoring Grant is designed to support districts, charter  schools and renaissance school projects (collectively “districts”) to provide high dosage, intensive tutoring by  focusing on high-impact tutoring interventions for students disproportionately affected by the pandemic. This grant  opportunity prioritizes districts with elementary schools serving students in grades three and four; however, additional grants may be awarded for additional grade level priorities. The High-Impact Tutoring Grant optimizes  funding for targeted tutoring through vendors, organizations, or districts, that meet established, research-based  criteria. 

Due to the significant interest in this grant opportunity, the New Jersey Department of Education (Department)  continues to prioritize the expeditious review of all competitive applications for award. Successful applicants will be informed through a notification from the Electronic Web-enabled Grant (EWEG) system when an update is made to the application status. As awards are being finalized, the Department has collaborated closely with the Division of  Local Government Services (DLGS) to provide a streamlined process for any districts whose requested funding  amounts may exceed public bidding thresholds. 

Procurement Guidance 

Districts procuring private entity vendors for tutoring under this program are reminded that any requested funds  that exceed public bidding thresholds must comply with the Public School Contracts Law (N.J.S.A. 18A:18A-1 et seq.).  To provide any districts that exceed this threshold with additional assistance in streamlining processes, a model  Request for Proposals (RFP) is available for use by districts in competitive procurement. DLGS has approved the use  of competitive contracting under N.J.S.A. 18A:18A-4.1.k for procurement of tutoring vendors under this Program.  Districts are not required to make an individual request to DLGS. In addition to following the advertising  requirements of N.J.S.A. 18A:18A-4.5, the Department encourages districts to distribute the RFP to vendors on the  list of those identified as meeting program requirements. 

Following the adoption of a board of education or board of trustees resolution authorizing competitive contracting,  the advertisement must be publicly posted for at least 20 days, with the contract being awarded within 60 days of  receipt of proposals. Competitive procurement requirements do not apply to contracts with State agencies, State  colleges/county colleges, or local government agencies. See this DLGS notice for additional information.  Additionally, districts that will be required to complete the procurement process are encouraged to begin that  process before a final award is granted with a formal contract award occurring after the final grant award. 

The applicable statute is N.J.S.A. 18A:18A-4.5. 

See the Department’s Office of Grants Management webpage for more information about the High Impact Tutoring  Grant. 

c: Members, State Board of Education 

NJDOE Staff 

Statewide Parent Advocacy Network  

Garden State Coalition of Schools