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Michigan Applying for $670,000 in Federal Aid for Displaced Students

June 19, 2018

LANSING – Michigan is applying for $670,000 in emergency federal hurricane relief funds to offset costs for nearly 100 students displaced and enrolled in Michigan schools in 2017-18.

Nationally, $2.7 billion, authorized by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, is available from the U.S. Department of Education (USED) to help K-12 schools and higher learning institutions in their efforts to recover from the remnants of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma or Maria after they turned inland. Another $25 million is available nationwide to support schools with displaced students who became homeless.

After accepting applications from 32 local districts from May 11-25, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) has requested funding for the districts under the federal Emergency Impact Aid and the Assistance for Homeless Children and Youth programs.

Because more than one-third of the districts had only one displaced student, who could be identified in violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the state is not releasing the names of the school districts that have applied.

MDE will distribute any awards to local districts to assist them with the cost of educating students displaced by a covered disaster or emergency in 2017-18.

From October 1, 2017 through April 1, 2018, Michigan reported 95 displaced students, including 62 who fit the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act’s definition of homeless. The amount of possible homeless aid for Michigan is unknown for now, but allocations will be based on a USED formula.

Since states were not required to document which natural disasters impacted students, it’s not known which hurricanes impacted the 95 Michigan students. 

There are three categories of impacted students for funding purposes:

  1. $10,000 for each student who is a child with a disability.
  2. $9,000 for each displaced student who is an English learner, and;
  3. $8,500 for each student who is not reported in either of the above categories

While they were eligible and notified of this availability, neither non-public schools nor Bureau of Indian Education schools reported displaced students.

For more information about the two USED programs, go to www.ed.gov/disasterrelief.