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LEA Consultation

Describe how the SEA will, in planning for the use of ARP ESSER funds, ensure that, consistent with the ARP ESSER requirements, its LEAs engage in meaningful consultation with stakeholders, including, but not limited to:

  1. students;
  2. families;
  3. school and district administrators (including special education administrators); and
  4. teachers, principals, school leaders, other educators, school staff, and their unions.

The LEA must also engage in meaningful consultation with each of the following to the extent present in or served by the LEA:

  1. Tribes;
  2. civil rights organizations (including disability rights organizations); and
  3. stakeholders representing the interests of children with disabilities, English learners, children experiencing homelessness, children and youth in foster care, migratory students, children who are incarcerated, and other underserved students.

The description must also include how the SEA will ensure that LEAs provide the public the opportunity to provide input in the development of the LEA's plan for the use of ARP ESSER funds and take such input into account.

PDE requires LEAs to detail stakeholder engagement efforts in the course of plan development. Specifically, PDE's subrecipient application asks LEAs to provide information on how stakeholders will be engaged in planning for the use of ARP ESSER funds, how stakeholder input will be utilized, and how the LEA will make its LEA Plan for the Use of ARP ESSER Funds transparent to the public—all critical components in developing, implementing, and adjusting plans based on the differential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specifically, LEAs are required to provide the following information:

    • Stakeholder Engagement: How the LEA, in planning for the use of ARP ESSER funds, has engaged or will engage in meaningful consultation with stakeholders, including each of the groups identified above.

    • Use of Stakeholder Input: How the LEA has taken or will take stakeholder and public input into account in the development of the LEA Plan for the Use of ARP ESSER Funds.

    • Public Access to LEA Plan for the Use of ARP ESSER Funds: The process for development, approval, and making public the LEA Plan for the Use of ARP ESSER Funds. LEAs have been informed that the LEA Plan must be made publicly available on the LEA website, must be written in a language that parents/caregivers can understand, and must be provided in alternate format upon request by a parent/caregiver who is an individual with a disability.

To support LEAs in this work, PDE commissioned its own stakeholder engagement activities at the state level, resulting in a Local Education Agency Guidebook that outlines best practices for authentic and equitable consultation with stakeholders and specific suggestions for how to manage these efforts in an era of social distancing as certain mitigation efforts continue.