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Early Literacy Support Block Grant
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Crestline Elementary

Overview

Section 113 of the Education Omnibus Trailer Bill (Senate Bill 98) for the 2020-21 California State Budget appropriates $50 million to establish the Early Literacy Support Block (ELSB) Grant Program. The ELSB Grant Program requires the California Department of Education (CDE) to award funds to local educational agencies (LEAs) with the 75 schools that have the highest percentage of students in grade three scoring at the lowest achievement standard level on the State Summative English Language Arts (ELA) assessment. 

LEAs with one or more of the identified schools are eligible for funding. The CDE notified all eligible LEAs on August 31, 2020, and invited them to apply for funding. LEAs that applied received an initial amount of up to $50,000 per eligible school to develop and implement a needs assessment and root cause analysis for each school, which informed the development of a required three-year Literacy Action Plan (LAP). Crestline Elementary School was determined eligible for funding and the BUSD/Crestline Literacy Action Plan and Budget Summary were approved by the BUSD Board of Trustees and CDE. The total grant award is $993,848 for the grant period of 2020-2021 through 2023-2024.

Grant funds may be used only to fund supplemental activities and shall not supplant already existing activities being provided by the LEA or at the eligible schools. The activities shall be targeted for improvement strategies for pupils in kindergarten and grades one to three, inclusive, at eligible schools.