This Executive Summary includes the activity of the Targeted Extended School Year Payments grant program for fiscal year 2020. Since the General Assembly began appropriating and authorizing grants to extend the school year in FY2014, the Virginia Department of Education has administered the voluntary grant application and award process. In the eight years of dedicated appropriations for this grant, 35 different school divisions have received awards to conduct planning and/or start-up activities.

To encourage applications for the FY2020 grant program, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) promoted the availability of $7,150,000 in start-up funds and $613,312 in planning funds included in the FY2020 Appropriation Act. The FY2019 grant cycle produced the largest number of grant-funded start-up and planning awards.

Using the guidelines established by the 2019 Appropriation Act Item 135 N (Appendix A), the VDOE awarded start-up grants totaling $7,515,274 to 42 schools in 8 school divisions—Carroll, Charlottesville, Chesterfield, Hampton, Hopewell, Newport News, Petersburg, and Winchester. These schools and prior year grant recipients implemented programs which served 10,276 students in some capacity during fiscal year 2020. Four school divisions applied for and received $248,038 in planning grant funds—Charlottesville, Grayson, Salem, and Waynesboro.