Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program (CSP): Grants to Charter School Developers for the Opening of New Charter Schools CFDA Number 84.282B | ED GRANTS 052220 001

Opportunity Information: Apply for ED GRANTS 052220 001

The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) is offering funding through the Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program (CSP) Developer Grants competition, specifically CFDA 84.282B, which supports the opening of new charter schools. This is a discretionary U.S. Department of Education grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number ED GRANTS 052220 001) that, in this cycle, listed an application closing date of June 19, 2020. The published description is a high-level synopsis, and applicants are expected to rely on the official Federal Register notice for the full set of requirements, priorities, performance measures, and submission instructions, along with the Department of Education common discretionary grant instructions referenced in the notice.

The overall purpose of the Charter Schools Program is to broaden access to high-quality charter schools and improve educational opportunity, with particular attention to students who have been traditionally underserved. In practice, the program is meant to help charter schools offer strong academic programs aligned with challenging state standards while also building the pipeline of quality charter options nationally. Beyond expanding the number of charter schools, CSP also emphasizes learning what works by evaluating charter school impacts on student achievement as well as effects on families and communities. The program further aims to spread successful practices between charter schools and traditional public schools, encourage states to strengthen charter authorizing practices, and promote state-level support for charter school facilities needs, which is often a major barrier to opening and sustaining new schools.

Within CSP, the Developer Grants are designed to cover the early stages of creating and launching a charter school. CFDA 84.282B focuses on helping developers with planning, program design, and initial implementation costs tied to opening a new charter school. The Department makes these awards on a competitive basis directly to charter school developers. A related but separate track (CFDA 84.282E) supports the replication or expansion of high-quality charter schools; that track is referenced in the notice to clarify how eligibility works across states with different CSP funding structures.

Eligibility is limited and depends heavily on whether a state already has a CSP State Entity grant (CFDA 84.282A) under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). For the new school opening grants under CFDA 84.282B, eligible applicants must be charter school developers in states that do not currently have a CSP State Entity grant. In other words, this competition is not universally open nationwide; it is targeted to states without an active state-level CSP entity grant. In addition, the charter school must be located in a state that has a charter school law specifically authorizing the establishment of charter schools, as defined in ESEA.

The notice also clarifies special rules for states that have a CSP State Educational Agency grant that was awarded under the earlier No Child Left Behind (NCLB) framework. In those states, developers generally are not eligible under the 84.282B new-school-opening competition; instead, eligibility is limited to applying for replication or expansion grants under CFDA 84.282E, and even then only under certain conditions (specifically, when the Department has not approved an amendment to the SEA grant that would allow the SEA to issue subgrants for replication and expansion). The intent behind these distinctions is to avoid duplicative funding routes and to route funding through state entities where those state-run CSP subgrant programs are already operating.

To qualify as an eligible developer, the applicant must have applied to an authorized public chartering authority to operate a charter school and must have provided that authorizer adequate and timely notice, consistent with the ESEA definition of a “developer.” The Department also signals a practical limitation tied to the “initial implementation” concept: as a general rule, charter schools that have been operating for more than five years are considered beyond the initial implementation phase. That means they are typically not eligible for CSP funds to support opening a new charter school under 84.282B, and they are generally not eligible for replication funding under 84.282E either, although they may still be eligible for expansion funding under 84.282E if they are expanding a high-quality school.

Finally, the notice addresses a common timing issue for applicants who are still in the charter authorization process. If a developer has applied to an authorizer but has not yet received final approval, the application to the federal competition must include a dated copy of the charter application that was submitted to the authorizer, along with information describing the plan and timeline for receiving the authorizer’s final decision. Applicants are also expected to clearly identify any proposed budget costs that would be incurred before the charter is formally approved, which helps reviewers and the Department understand what activities are contingent on authorization and how the project will be managed if approval occurs after the federal application is submitted.

• The Department of Education in the education, oz sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program (CSP): Grants to Charter School Developers for the Opening of New Charter Schools CFDA Number 84.282B" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 84.282.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2020-05-22.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2020-06-19. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

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