Every Student Succeeds Act/Preschool Development Grants

The Preschool Development Grants (PDG) program seeks to assist states (including territories) in helping low-income and disadvantaged children enter Kindergarten prepared and ready to succeed in school and to help improve the transitions from the early care and education setting to elementary school. The overall responsibility of the ESSA PDG is to assist states (including territories) in the coordination of their existing early childhood service delivery models and funding streams - for the purpose of serving more children birth through age five in a mixed delivery model. The ESSA PDG has three targeted purposes. It aims to: "(1) assist States to develop, update, or implement a strategic plan that facilitates collaboration and coordination among existing programs of early childhood care and education in a mixed delivery system across the State designed to prepare low-income and disadvantaged children to enter kindergarten and to improve transitions from such system into the local educational agency or elementary school that enrolls such children, by� (A) more efficiently using existing Federal, State, local, and non-governmental resources to align and strengthen the delivery of existing programs, (B) coordinating the delivery models and funding streams existing in the State's mixed delivery system; and (C) developing recommendations to better use existing resources in order to improve-- (i) the overall participation of children in a mixed delivery system of Federal, State, and local early childhood education programs; (ii) program quality while maintaining...

Each of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa are eligible to apply for a 1-year early childhood birth through five systems-building award, per our Notice of Funding Opportunity's (NOFO) eligibility criteria.

"Matching requirement.--Each State that receives a grant under this section shall provide funds from non-Federal sources (which may be provided in cash or in kind) to carry out the activities supported by the grant, in an amount equal to not less than 30 percent of the federal amount of the grant." [Note to 42 USC 9831] In addition, we waive cost sharing up to $199,999 for awards to the governments of American Samoa, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands (except for consolidated awards under 45 CFR Part 97). These territories must meet any amount of cost sharing over $199,999. See 48 U.S.C. 1469a(d) Congressional declaration of policy respecting �Insular Areas.�