As promised, the U.S. Department of Education (USED) issued an updated template for ESSA State Plans. The document “Revised State Template for the Consolidated State Plan” was posted on March 13, 2017. The updated template follows closely on the heels of the U.S. Senate vote to rescind the regulations for Accountability and State Plans.
Some of the significant changes include:
The updated template reiterates the submission dates of April 3rd and September 18th, including the parameter that any ESSA State Plan received after April 3rd, but on or before September 18th, will be considered to be submitted on September 18th.
One other impact of updating the ESSA State Plan template relates to the requirement for the Governor of each State to review their State’s ESSA State Plan, and sign off on that plan (or not). The mandatory review period is 30 days prior to submission. Given that the April 3rd ESSA State Plan submission date is less than 30 days from the issuance of this updated ESSA State Plan template, it may not be possible to meet that deadline for a number of States. A fact sheet issued along with the updated ESSA State Plan template addresses this issue by allowing for a submission date later than April 3rd for the April 3rd submission. Here is the relevant text from the factsheet:
“The Department recognizes, however, that in some States the Governor may not have time to complete his or her full 30-day review by April 3, 2017. Therefore, to be considered during the spring peer review window a SEA, in this case, must submit its plan to the Governor for review by at least April 3, 2017 and subsequently submit its plan to the Department no later than the end of the 30 day review period or May 3, 2017, whichever is earlier.”
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