Indian Education Formula Grants (Formula)

This program is designed to address the unique cultural, language, and educationally related academic needs of American Indian and Alaska Native students, including preschool children. The programs funded are to meet the unique cultural, language, and educational needs of Indian students and ensure that all students meet the challenging State academic standard. The program is the Department's principal vehicle for addressing the particular needs of Indian children.

Important Notices

• FY 2024 New Project Director Training was held on August 14, 2024. More info here.
• Registration for the FY 2025 (SY 2025-26) Formula Grant cycle opened on November 4, 2024, and will close on December 6, 2024. More info here.

OIE Community of Practice Page.

Types of Projects

Grant funds supplement the regular school program by meeting the culturally related academic needs of Indian children. Projects help Indian children sharpen their academic skills, assist students in becoming proficient in the core content areas, and provide students an opportunity to participate in enrichment programs that would otherwise be unavailable. Funds support such activities as culturally-responsive after-school programs, Native language classes, early childhood education, reading/math/STEM and/or general academic tutoring, wellness, career and college awareness, improving attendance and graduation rates, American Indian/Alaska Native cultural workshops, and dropout prevention.

Additional Information

The Indian Education Formula Grant program provides grants to support local educational agencies in their efforts to reform elementary and secondary school programs that serve Indian students. Annually each applicant develops and submits to the Department a comprehensive plan for meeting the needs of Indian children. Applicants must develop this plan in collaboration with a local committee comprised primarily of parents and family members of Indian children and must include student performance goals, a description of professional development activities that the applicant will carry out, and an explanation of how it will assess students' progress toward meeting its goals and will provide the results of this assessment to the parent committee, Indian community and tribes whose children are served by the LEA.

Special Events

No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service, or enterprise mentioned herein is intended or should be inferred.

Our friends at Tahlequah Public Schools in Oklahoma held a Native American dance demonstration at a packed Tahlequah Multipurpose Activity Center on November 30, 2022. Chris Ray, Title VI Director, shared photos (with the appropriate permissions) from the event, which included Native regalia, a drum circle, and fun for all ages! Read more about the event.

1. Eligible Applicants: The following entities are eligible under this program: Certain LEAs, as prescribed by ESEA section 6112(b), including charter schools authorized as LEAs under State law; certain schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Education of the U.S. Department of the Interior (BIE), as prescribed by ESEA section 6113(d); Indian Tribes and IOs under certain conditions, as prescribed by ESEA section 6112(c); and ICBOs, as prescribed by ESEA section 6112(d). Consortia of two or more eligible entities are also eligible under certain circumstances, as prescribed by ESEA section 6112(a)(4).
2. Cost Sharing or Matching: This program does not require cost sharing or matching.
3. Supplement-Not-Supplant: ESEA Section 6114(c)(1) requires a grantee to use these grant funds only to supplement the funds that, in the absence of these Federal funds, such agency would make available for services described in this application, and not to supplant such funds.
4. Indirect Cost Rate Information: This program uses a restricted indirect cost rate. For more information regarding restricted indirect costs, or to obtain a negotiated restricted indirect cost rate, please see: www2.ed.gov/​about/​offices/​list/​ocfo/​restrate.html.
5. Administrative Cost Limitation: We note that, under ESEA section 6115(d) and per the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, no more than five percent of the funds awarded for a grant may be used for direct administrative costs. This five percent limit does not include indirect costs.

Federal Register :: Applications for New Awards; Office of Indian Education Formula Grants to Local Educational Agencies

EASIE Community of Practice (CoP)

FY 2024

Appropriation: $110,381,000
Number of New Awards: 1,276
Number of States with Title VI Programs: 38
Average Award: $86,505.00
Range of Awards: $4,000 - $2,416,936

FY 2023

Appropriation: $110,377,777
Number of New Awards: 1,271
Number of States with Title VI Programs: 38
Average Award: $86,911.64
Range of Awards: $4,000 - $2,701,370

FY 2022

Appropriation: $109,881,000
Number of New Awards: 1,276
Number of States with Title VI Programs: 38
Average Award: $86,046
Range of Awards: $4,000 - $2,653,308

FY 2021

Appropriation: $105,381,000
Number of New Awards: 1,258
Number of States with Title VI Programs: 38
Average Award: $81,647
Range of Awards: $4,000 - $2,730,488

Legislation

Title VI — Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native Education, Part A — Indian Education

Title VI — Indian, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native Education Part A — Indian Education (redline version)

President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act into law on December 10, 2015.

ESSA includes provisions that will help to ensure success for students and schools. Below are just a few. The law:

• Advances equity by upholding critical protections for America's disadvantaged and high-need students.
• Requires—for the first time—that all students in America be taught to high academic standards that will prepare them to succeed in college and careers.
• Ensures that vital information is provided to educators, families, students, and communities through annual statewide assessments that measure students' progress toward those high standards.
• Helps to support and grow local innovations—including evidence-based and place-based interventions developed by local leaders and educators—consistent with our Promise Neighborhoods
• Sustains and expands this administration's historic investments in increasing access to high-quality preschool.
• Maintains an expectation that there will be accountability and action to effect positive change in our lowest-performing schools, where groups of students are not making progress, and where graduation rates are low over extended periods of time.
  • Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), amended as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), 2015: https://www.congress.gov/114/plaws/publ95/PLAW-114publ95.pdf
  • Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended, Title VII, Part A, Subpart 1; 20 U.S.C. 7421-7429, 7491-7492

Regulations

• EDGAR
• Uniform Administrative and Cost Principles, 2 CFR part 200 - Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR) link: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=6214841a79953f26c5c230d72d6b70a1&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title02/2cfr200_main_02.tpl

Other Applicable Grant Regulations

• 34 CFR part 75— Direct Grant Programs: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=393301a7cdccca1ea71f18aae51824e7&node=34:1.1.1.1.22&rgn=div5

Guidance

• NEW: You can read about Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Tribal Consultation Guidance FAQs (September 2016) here.
• Electronic Grant Award Notice (GAN) Information for Grantees Webinar
• Federal Register https://www.federalregister.gov/
• SAM.gov (login and password set up required) https://sam.gov/content/home
• G5 - Grant's Management System: https://www.g5.gov/EDIDMApp/adAuthentication/adLogin.action
• EASIE CoP Communities360° - Home > Overview > Announcements (ed.gov)
• OESE Every Student Succeeds Act: https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-formula-grants/school-support-and-accountability/the-elementary-secondary-education-act-the-every-student-succeeds-act-of-2016/every-student-succeeds-act-essa/
• OIE Flexibilities:
  • FY19 https://oese.ed.gov/files/2020/05/OIE-TVI-Flexibilities.pdf.
  • FY20 OIE Formula Flexibilities FY 20 210624 1337 V3 pdf link
• OIE Annual Federal Register Notice

Formula Team

The Formula Team reviews all formula grants to LEA applications for approval and answers all programmatic questions from grantees regarding the formula grant program.

Meet Our Staff

Dr. Crystal Moore Ed.D.

Crystal has served as the OIE Formula Group Leader since March 2020 and has worked in OIE since 2019. She is also the current Designated Federal Official for the Presidentially-appointed National Advisory Council on Indian Education (NACIE). As the only known Native American Tribal member, Doctor of Education in Learning Technologies (Pepperdine University, 2013) worldwide, Crystal is completely committed to the ED's mission to promote students cultural and academic achievement by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. Based on her family of seven generations of America Indian Educators, she has a particular focus on improving the quality of life for Native Americans by empowering overall diverse communities in need through innovative grant-making/economic development.

For fifteen years prior to working at ED, Crystal has previously served as a university Director of Online Learning and as a tenure-track university Assistant Professor of Education Technologies for a university with a high Native American student population. During this time, she co-led the creation of two, 100% online culturally responsive Master of Education Technology programs, as well as created and/or taught education research, Native studies, and several other culturally responsive master's level courses. For the previous 10 years of her Education career, Crystal taught/worked with all grade levels K-12 as a classroom Teacher and Technology Coordinator in a more rural high-Mexican Indigenous Migrant Ed./English Language Learner based School district and then in a diverse, urban school district. For that work, she was often (co)housed out of the I.T. Department, all while serving on numerous localized and national/international Boards. Prior to that work, Crystal was a business manager in corporate America.

Currently, she is thrilled about her service to Indian Country working for ED, while living in the D.C. Metro area with husband and infant daughter. Some of more recent awards/honors include: OESE Difference Maker Awards: Innovator and Breakthrough Team (2021); Member, Leadership Native Oklahoma Class (2018);, American Education Research Association (AERA) — Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender Certificate of Appreciation for Excellent Work and Dedication to the SIG, Excellent Leadership as Secretary/Treasurer (2016);, and National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED) "Native American [Top] 40 Under 40" Award Recipient and NCAIED International $20K Business Plan Competition Semi-Finalist (2013). Crystal continues to love her OIE Formula Group Leader position; after serving in this role for the past three years, she is incredibly honored to be able to serve the wonderful Title VI (A,1) family.

Annabelle Toledo (Jemez Pueblo)

Annabelle is a Program Officer who serves the OIE Formula Grantees located in the Eastern Region of the U.S. She is a Tribal member from the Pueblo of Jemez, New Mexico. She has been with the Office of Indian Education (OIE) for over 18yrs working with Formula Grants. She started in OIE back in 2003 when it was called Title VII and it was a paper application. In 2007, the application process went electronic and OIE titled the application EASIE-Electronic Application System for Indian Education. She serves as the Program Officer assigned to the Eastern States. She is committed and passionate to serve the needs of our American Indian/Alaskan Native students who benefit from our Title VI Grant and empowering parents to participate in the application process. Prior to her role in OIE, Annabelle worked for the U.S. Department of the Interior for three years. Annabelle has received three different U.S. Department of Education Difference Maker Awards:

2014 Breakthrough Team Recipient (2014), Mentor Recipient (2015), MPP: Most Positive Player Recipient (2016), and 2019 OESE Difference Maker.

Wanda Lee, M.Ed. (Lumbee)

Wanda has been an OIE Formula Program Officer for over the past six years. She is assigned to serve the OIE Formula Grantees located in the State of Oklahoma. Drawing on her Lumbee and Cherokee heritage, Wanda loves teaching empowering culturally responsive Indian Education efforts across the Nation via her Office of Indian Education - Education Program Specialist position. Wanda completed her Education Policy, Planning, and Administration Master of Education degree from the University of Maryland, College Park with Summa Cum Laude honors. Ms. Lee's favorite previous positions include the: Seminole Nation of FL's Ahfachkee Day School Bilingual Curriculum Development Program, Baltimore City & County Indian Education Programs, and Maryland Indian Commissioner. For over 16 years, she has served Maryland K-12 schools as a teacher of 2nd — 4th/6th — 8th grade classroom/reading, literacy, and pre-GED/GED courses/GED. Also prior to joining ED, Wanda worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture for six years. She also was a National Honor Society Member, Kappa Delta Pi Fellow (1992-1993), and an Arthur Parsons Scholar (1992-1993).

Gregory Hindsley, M.A.

Greg is a Program Officer who serves the OIE Formula Grantees located in the Northwest Region of the U.S. Greg has worked for the Department of Education since January 2022. He enjoys communicating with grantees and collaboratively solving problems with the OIE team. Prior to his role at OIE, he worked at the U.S. Department of the Interior, with the first three years at the Bureau of Land Management. For the remaining 15 years Greg worked several positions at the National Park Service, focusing on cultural resources, law enforcement administration, and battlefield preservation project grants. He also has knowledge in social media, budget analysis, and human resource and inter-departmental contracting. He holds a Master of Arts degree in History from the University of South Carolina, and a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education/Social Studies from Providence College in Rhode Island. Greg completed the Department's 2022 Development through Mentoring Program in December 2022, and is currently participating in the 2024 Data Science Training Program.