The purpose of the Nita M. Lowey Alaska 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program is to provide competitive grants to organizations that are working in partnership within their community and schools to provide expanded learning and enrichment opportunities for children and their families outside of regular school hours. The program is designed to target funds to communities that have low achieving students and high rates of poverty but lack the resources to establish after school centers. Funding for Alaska’s 21st CCLC program is provided by federal funds from ESEA, Title IV, Part B.
There are no competitive grant opportunities available at this time. DEED anticipates it will not offer another 21st CCLC grant competition until winter of the 24-25 school year; however, this plan is subject to change based upon factors such as increased or decreased federal funding.
For informational purposes, the most recent Request for Applications (from spring 2020) and its related documents are provided below:
Once an applicant wins a 21st CCLC grant award, they will receive an annual continuation award for up to a maximum of five years of funding, contingent upon good standing and continued federal funding, similar to most competitive grants.
In addition, Section 4204(j) of ESEA gives State Education Agencies (SEA) the unusual option of giving successful grantees a one-time non-competitive renewal of their award for an additional three to five years.
SEAs are not required to allow a “renewability” option, and notably, the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development’s policy is to only employ the renewability option sparingly, preferring to have previously successful grantees compete for additional funding awards along with all other applicants. However, DEED does occasionally use the renewability option to solve problems such as a decrease in funding, logistical issues, or a lack of applicant interest when a surplus of “easier” funds has been available.
When determining eligibility for renewal, DEED primarily considers progress on meeting grantee-set performance indicators, serving the proposed the number regular attendees, providing the proposed number of programming hours, and providing proposed academic and enrichment instructional activities.
In order to increase the capacity of Alaska’s communities to offer high-quality 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC) applications and programs, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (DEED) to make available a list of potential Alaska non-profit “external organizations” that 21st CCLC applicants may be interested in partnering with when building a 21st CCLC out-of-school-time program. Community partnerships within 21st CCLC programs are strongly encouraged as they have the potential to increase program quality, variety, and sustainability. The term "partnerships" in this instance is used loosely and may involve for-pay contracted services, in-kind services, etc.
Each 21st CCLC grantee is required to contract with an external evaluator to conduct a Local Evaluation of the program and issue a report annually. These annual local evaluation reports can be reviewed by any interested stakeholder by finding it on the program’s webpage or else contacting the program to request a copy.