Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program

What's New

Announcing New Fiscal Year 2024 Credit Enhancement Grant Awards!

On September 26, 2024, the U.S. Department of Education awarded approximately $77,850,000 in new funds through five grants.

For more information about the new awards, please visit the FY 2024 CSP Credit Enhancement Award tab.

Program Description

The purpose of the Credit Enhancement program is to award grants to eligible entities that demonstrate innovative methods of helping charter schools address the cost of acquiring, constructing, and renovating facilities by enhancing the availability of loans and bond financing.

This program provides grants to eligible entities to permit them to enhance the credit of charter schools so the charter schools can access private-sector and other non-Federal capital in order to acquire, construct, and renovate facilities at a reasonable cost.

Objective

An eligible entity receiving a grant must use the funds deposited in the reserve account to assist one or more charter schools to access private-sector capital to accomplish one or more of the following objectives:

• The acquisition (by purchase, lease, donation, or otherwise) of an interest (including an interest held by a third party for the benefit of a charter school) in improved or unimproved real property that is necessary to commence or continue the operation of a charter school.
• The construction of new facilities, or the renovation, repair, or alteration of existing facilities, necessary to commence or continue the operation of a charter school.
• The pre-development costs required to assess sites and to commence or continue the operation of a charter school.

Permissible Uses of Reserve Account Funds

An eligible entity receiving a grant shall, in accordance with State and local law, directly or indirectly, alone or in collaboration with others, deposit the funds received (other than funds used for administrative costs), in a reserve account established and maintained by the eligible entity. Amounts deposited in such account shall be used by the eligible entity for one or more of the following purposes:

• Guaranteeing, insuring, and re-insuring bonds, notes, evidences of debt, loans, and interests therein.
• Guaranteeing and insuring leases of personal and real property.
• Facilitating financing by identifying potential lending sources, encouraging private lending, and other similar activities that directly promote lending to, or for the benefit of, charter schools.
• Facilitating the issuance of bonds by charter schools, or by other public entities for the benefit of charter schools, by providing technical, administrative, and other appropriate assistance (including the recruitment of bond counsel, underwriters, and potential investors and the consolidation of multiple charter school projects within a single bond issue).

Funds received and deposited in the reserve account shall be invested in obligations issued or guaranteed by the United States or a State, or in other similarly low-risk securities. Any earnings on funds received shall be deposited in the reserve account and used in accordance with this program.

Impermissible Uses of Reserve Account Funds

Grantees may not use reserve account funds to:

• Directly pay for a charter school's construction, renovation, repair, or acquisition.
• Provide a down payment on facilities in order to secure loans for charter schools.

A grantee may, however, use funds to guarantee a loan for the portion of the loan that would otherwise have to be funded with a down payment.

Applicant Information

The Notice Inviting Applications (NIA) for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program —  Credit Enhancement Grants (CE Grants) was published in the Federal Register on May 10, 2023.  The deadline for submission of a grant application under this competition is 11:59:59p.m. ET on June 26, 2023.

FY 2023 CSP CE Notice Inviting Applications

Posted in the Federal Register on May 10, 2023 PDF  HTML

FY 2023 Competition Timeline 

• Deadline for Notice of Intent to Apply: May 25, 2023
• Deadline for Transmittal of Applications: June 26, 2023
• Deadline for Intergovernmental Review: August 23, 2023

FY 2023 Competition Information

Pre-Application Technical Assistance Webinars:

• FY 2023 Pre-Application Webinar: Thursday, May 18^th 2:30 pm — 4:00 pm EST
  • The webinar link here.
  • During the webinar, the Department will review the competition eligibility requirements, priorities, selection criteria, and application requirements. Also, the Department will review the steps required to complete the Grants.gov registration process and answer participants' questions.
    • Recording
    • Slide Deck — PDF (2 MB)
    • Links Included in the Pre-Application Webinar — PDF (333 KB)
    • Transcript — PDF

Application Package and Submission:

• CE Application Package Instructions.  Please note this is an electronic copy for you to download and use as a guide only.
• All required application forms are in the electronic application package in Grants.gov.
• Applications must be submitted electronically through the Grants.gov system at http://www.grants.gov/.
• Please do not e-mail an electronic copy of a grant application to U.S. Department of Education staff. 

Hard Copy Applications:

For hard copy application packages, contact:

Clifton Jones

U.S. Department of Education

400 Maryland Avenue SW

Washington, DC 20202

Email: charter.facilities@ed.gov

Registering on Grants.gov and SAM.gov:

• REGISTER EARLY  — Grants.gov registration involves many steps including registration on SAM (sam.gov), which usually takes approximately 7 to 10 business days, but can take longer depending on the completeness and accuracy of the data entered into the SAM database by an applicant.
• You may begin working on your application while completing the registration process, but you cannot submit an application until all of the Registration steps are complete.
• Please note that once your SAM registration is active, it will take 24-48 hours for the information to be available in Grants.gov, and before you can submit an application through Grants.gov.
• For detailed information on the Registration Steps, please go to here. Please note that your organization will need to update its SAM registration annually.
• To register in SAM.gov, click on the "Get Started" link under the "Register Your Entity…" heading in SAM.gov.
• Grantees, and other entities wanting to do business with the U.S. Department of Education (e.g., entities applying for a grant), that are not already registered in SAM.gov must complete the "Register Entity" registration option and NOT the "Get a Unique Entity ID" option. The "Get a Unique Entity ID" option, which is not a full registration, is only available to entities for reporting purposes.  Failing to complete the "Register Entity" option may result in loss of funding, loss of applicant eligibility, and/or delays in receiving a grant award.
• Information about SAM is available at SAM.gov. To further assist you with registering in SAM or updating your existing SAM registration, see the Quick Start Guide for Grant Registrations and the Entity Registration Video here.

Application Information

The Notice Inviting Applications (NIA) for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program — Credit Enhancement Grants (CE Grants) was published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, May 10, 2023 and can be accessed here.  The deadline for submission of a grant application under this competition is 11:59:59p.m. ET on June 26, 2023.

Additional competition information can be accessed on the FY 2023 CE Competition tab.

Eligibility

Eligible applicants include public entities (such as state or local government entities), private nonprofit entities, or a consortium of such entities.

Included in the chart below is the amount of funding per fiscal year since 2001.

Legislation, Regulations, and Guidance

• The U.S. Secretary of Education is authorized to award grants for this competition under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) (20 U.S.C. 7221c). For program legislation visit: 20 USC 7221c.
• For grant regulations contained in EDGAR (Education Department General Administrative Regulations) go to: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/fund/reg/edgarReg/edgar.html.
• Credit Enhancement Program Regulations can be found at: eCFR :: 34 CFR Part 225 -- Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program.
• The guidance for the Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities program can be found at: MS Word (216K) | PDF (148K).

Complete List of Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Grants

Included below is information regarding the new awards made in each fiscal year since 2009.

Awards Table Instructions: Please use the scroll bar at the bottom of the Awards tab to view the entire Awards table.