Section 4601 of the federal Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act (P.L. 116-159) extends the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program for eligible school children attending schools implementing federal Child Nutrition Programs, including the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), School Breakfast Program (SBP), Seamless Summer Option (SSO) and Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) for the 2020-21 School Year (SY). This memo provides notice to School Food Authorities (SFAs) to immediately commence compiling eligibility and other data necessary for the issuance of SY 2020-21 P-EBT benefits to eligible children.

As part of the Department’s ongoing efforts to provide districts with flexibility in meeting local needs, the Department is extending through the 2021-22 school year the pilot to enable school districts to pivot to remote instruction on what would otherwise be a day of school closure due to weather and non-weather emergencies, including but not limited to snow, floods, tornadoes, and building fires. This is at the district option and must be consistent with district instructional and reopening plans.

The New York State Education Department (NYSED or “the Department”) is requesting public comment on the inclusion of Regents Examination exemptions when calculating Performance Indices (PI) as required by the New York State approved Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) accountability plan. These Regents Examination exemptions will impact calculations of student performance measures for accountability determinations for multiple years beyond the current school year. Therefore, the Department must determine how records for students eligible for exemptions from Regents Examinations should be included when calculating Performance Indices. Any amendments to New York’s approved ESSA plan to address the inclusion of exemptions into the accountability system will need approval from the United States Department of Education and adoption of regulatory amendments by the New York State Board of Regents.

Today, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released the COVID-19 Handbook, Volume 2: Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students' Needs to provide additional strategies for safely reopening all of America's schools and to promote educational equity by addressing opportunity gaps that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Building off of Volume 1: Strategies for Safely Reopening Elementary and Secondary Schools, which focused on health and safety measures that schools can use to successfully implement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) K-12 Operational Strategy, Volume 2 of the Handbook focuses on research-based strategies to address the social, emotional, mental-health, and academic impacts of the pandemic on students, educators, and staff, such as how to address any potential anxiety or depression some may face as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and nearly a year of remote learning.

This Interim Guidance for In-Person Instruction at Pre-K to Grade 12 Schools during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (“Interim COVID-19 Guidance for Schools”) was originally created in August 2020 to provide all elementary (including pre-kindergarten), middle, and high schools, as well as their employees, contractors, students, and parents/legal guardians of students with precautions to help protect against the spread of COVID-19 for schools that are authorized to provide in-person instruction in the 2020-2021 school year. This April 2021 update is intended to align this guidance with the most recent recommendations from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on how to prioritize safe in-person learning in schools while adhering to layered mitigation strategies.