Emergency Memo

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

September 10, 2021
MEMORANDUM
TO:

Lindsay Abate
Office of Management and Budget Desk Officer

FROM:

Ian Rosenblum
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Programs
Delegated the Authority to Perform the
Functions and Duties of the Assistant Secretary
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

RE:

Emergency Request for Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) approval

Pursuant to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) procedures established at 5 CFR
1320, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) requests the following collection of
information to be collected from Local educational agencies (LEAs) that receive funds
under the Project to Support America’s Families and Educators (SAFE) Grant Program be
processed in accordance with section 1320.13 Emergency Processing.
The Department recognizes that local educational agencies need resources as quickly as
possible to address the evolving nature of the extended novel COVID-19 pandemic to meet
the needs of students and staff. We plan to utilize an anticipated balance of funds in the FY
2021 School Safety National Activities (SSNA) budget, to support the Biden
Administration’s direction for the Department to provide financial support to educators and
districts being financially sanctioned by their State for adopting and implementing CDC
guidance to protect students and staff from the COVID-19 virus. Project SAFE would be a
new discretionary grant program created in response to the Biden Administration’s
direction.
SSNA grant funds must be used to improve student safety and well-being, including by
addressing the harmful impact of disruptive State penalties imposed on the LEA for
implementing CDC guidance. For example, an allowable use of grant funds may include
activities to facilitate the continued implementation of strategies aligned with CDC
guidance, despite the State-imposed penalty, and/or maintaining LEA and school stability,
such as by enabling the LEA to make up for financial penalties levied on the LEA for
implementing strategies aligned with CDC guidance including but not limited to the
reduction in salaries for the superintendent or school board members.
400 MARYLAND AVE. SW, WASHINGTON, DC 20202
www.ed.gov
The Department of Education’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by
fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.

Under the new Project SAFE grant program, applications will be submitted on a rolling
basis before the end of fiscal year (FY) 2021 and throughout fiscal year 2022. Upon receipt
of the applications, the intent is to quickly review and make approval decisions of awards
as quickly as possible to make the award the funds before the end of this fiscal year. The
application requires submission of information about the LEA’s eligibility and needs of its
students, educators, schools, and school staff. An LEA is eligible for Project SAFE if it:
(a) has adopted a policy to implement and is implementing one or more specific
strategies drawn from the recommendations in the CDC’s most recent Guidance for
COVID-19 Prevention in K-12 Schools;
(b) Has incurred or will incur a financial penalty imposed by its SEA or other State entity,
such as a reduction in funding, including but not limited to reduction in salaries for school
board members or superintendents, due to implementation of one or more strategies
described in paragraph (a); and
(c) To protect the safety and well-being of students, has continued at the time of
application to implement such strategy or strategies for which the penalty was imposed and
commits to maintain such strategy or strategies to the extent consistent with CDC guidance
for the 2021-2022 school year.
The Project SAFE grant program timeline is extremely short due to the Biden
Administration’s direction to the Department to create the program to address urgent
needs. For these reasons, we are requesting emergency approval of the Project SAFE
application so that LEAs can demonstrate their eligibility and need to implement the
program as intended and receive funds to address the immediate needs of their students,
staff, and schools.
The application will be made available as quickly as possible next week. If this emergency
collection is not approved, the Department will not be able to carry out the Biden
Administration’s direction to the Department and to ensure needed resources are available
to LEAs in a timely manner to immediately address related needs of returning students and
educators to safe, healthy, supportive in-person learning environments impacted by the
pandemic.
To reduce the burden on LEAs, the Department has created an application LEAs must use
to collect the required information. We anticipate that approximately 13 LEAs will
respond, and we estimate that the application template will take approximately 2 hours for
each LEA to complete.
In order to provide LEAs adequate time to submit their applications, the Department
request approval of this submission timed with approval of the NIA. Given the inability to
seek public comment during such a short timeframe for this emergency collection, the
Department will also provide 60-day language as part of the notice in the Federal Register
seeking public comment for the regular information collection.

2