The U.S. Department of Education announced today that Idaho will receive $51.6 million to support education jobs across the state through the federal Education Jobs Fund.
“We will work to make the Education Jobs Funds available to Idaho’s schools and districts as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna said. “I continue to encourage our schools to use these funds over the next two years to focus on student achievement and preserve student-teacher contact time by keeping teachers and teaching aides in the classroom and restoring any instructional days that might have been lost.”
The Office of Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter submitted Idaho’s application for its portion of the federal Education Jobs Fund on August 20. The application was approved this week.
The federal Education Jobs Fund was appropriated as part of the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act that Congress and the President approved in August. Under the Education Jobs Fund, each state receives additional funding to save or create education jobs over the next 27 months. Each Idaho school district and public charter school has confirmed it will use this funding in the coming school years.
Superintendent Luna and Governor Otter have strongly encouraged Idaho’s school districts and public charter schools to use this funding effectively and efficiently to rehire classroom teachers who might have been laid off, to restore classroom time that has been lost, and to budget this funding over the next two years.
“We appreciate how quickly the Education Department processed our application. Superintendent Luna and I will do all we can to ensure the money is used efficiently and for improving classroom instruction, but at the end of the day it will be local school administrators who determine how to put the funding to work in the best interest of our students,” said Governor Otter.
Learn more about the Education Jobs Fund in Idaho.
~ Melissa M.
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