A letter on Federal Education Programs is coming to your mailbox in January.
Anyone who has ever been involved in the K-12 world knows a school’s daily pace from Thanksgiving weekend to winter break rapidly picks up speed. These four weeks are generally the most hectic of the entire school year, which also means federal education programs aren’t high on an administrator’s priority list.
However, in January public schools send letters to all private schools, asking if they’re interested in participating in any of the available federal education programs. If you’re one of the private schools to receive a letter, we strongly encourage you to say “Yes” for all federal programs. When private schools indicate they want to participate in the programs, the public school knows to include the school, its teachers, and students in their calculations for the following school year. As a private school, it’s always best to say “Yes” at the initial ask because it IS possible to decline the services at a later date. However if a private school says “No” initially, it CANNOT add the services later on.
Once public schools begin their calculations, the FACTS Education Solutions team will work double time to help our private school partners maximize their program dollars for the benefit of their students, parents, teachers, and administrators. With almost 10 percent of students in the United States attending private schools, federal education programs are designed to ensure equitable participation of private school students.
If you know of a private school that might need assistance with federal programs, please feel free to let FACTS Education Solutions know. We’ll add their names to our list of schools we reach out to in January. This allows them to focus on getting through the next few weeks; and we acknowledge there are far more important things to accomplish, like getting 30 Kindergartners lined up and singing “Jingle Bells”!
Dr. Patrick Haggarty, President, FACTS Education Solutions
