ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION, RI DEPARTMENT OF

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) appropriates additional funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to Local Education Agencies (LEAs) to help them ensure that children with disabilities, including children aged three through five, have access to a free appropriate public education to meet each child?s unique needs and prepare each child for further education, employment, and independent living. The goal of the IDEA ARRA programs is to implement innovative strategies to improve outcomes for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities while stimulating the economy. LEAs must use their IDEA ARRA funds in accordance with all of the IDEA statutory and regulatory requirements and applicable requirements in the General Education Provisions Act and the Education Department General Administrative Regulations. Their use of these funds is limited to the excess costs of providing special education and related services to children with disabilities, except where IDEA specifically provides otherwise. Because IDEA ARRA funds are not expected to be available beyond September 20, 2011, LEAs are directed to focus on short-term investments with long-term benefit, including the use of evidence based strategies to build sustainable capacity for improving teaching and learning for students with disabilities. LEAs were encouraged to first consider coherent, effective, and sustainable reforms that are consistent with the four ARRA education reform goals and, second, to ensure that expenditures are planned such that they support excess costs of special education, with the exception of providing ?early intervening services? (EIS) for selected general education students experiencing academic or behavioral challenges. A 15% reserve for EIS is required of every LEA determined as having significant disproportionality in its identification, placement, or discipline of students with disabilities.

Clarification of Codes