This Executive Summary includes the activity of the Targeted Extended School Year Payments grant program for fiscal year 2021. 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, 25 different school divisions have received awards to conduct planning and/or start-up activities.

To encourage applications for the FY2021 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 FY2021 Appropriation Act for a total of $7,763,312 in available funds.

Using the guidelines established by the 2020 Appropriation Act Item 135 N (Appendix A), the VDOE awarded start-up grants totaling $7,755,167 to 53 schools in nine school divisions—Bristol, Carroll, Charlottesville, Hampton, Hopewell, Newport News, Roanoke City, Salem, and Waynesboro. These nine school divisions and four prior year grant recipients implemented programs which served 17,333 students in some capacity during fiscal year 2021. One school division applied for and received $8,145 in planning grant funds—Colonial Beach.