The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) is now accepting applications to fund community and school partnerships through Indiana’s new Student Learning Recovery Grant Program and Fund. With the goal of accelerating student learning, $27.5 million is now available through the grant’s second funding round.

Created this year through House Enrolled Act 1008, the Student Learning Recovery Grant Program and Fund allocated $150 million to support accelerated learning plans, with a focus on partnerships between community organizations, education service centers, higher education institutions and K-12 schools. Applications for the first round of state grant funding opened in April 2021, with more than $122 million awarded over the summer to more than 110 school and community partnerships across the state, serving students in 83 of Indiana’s 92 counties.

This grant provides an important financial resource to schools and community partners, with research showing that the academic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are substantial. According to research from IDOE and the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, Inc. (Center for Assessment), the academic impact ranges from moderate to significant across schools, academic subjects and demographic groups.

Many recipients of the first round of funding began deploying their grant funds as part of summer and fall learning, and are continuing to use their grants to accelerate student learning outside of the typical school day. 

  • United Way of Central Indiana: “The pandemic has exacerbated already large academic disparities, particularly for students of color and children from low-income households. In response, organizations across Indianapolis joined together to launch Indy Summer Learning Labs, a community-wide effort to accelerate learning for 3,000 of our city’s most marginalized students. We are proud of the significant learning gains achieved this summer and look forward to serving even more students next year. None of this would have been possible without the foresight of our state leaders to create the Student Learning Recovery Grant Program.” -Brandon Brown, CEO at The Mind Trust, and Ann Murtlow, CEO at United Way of Central Indiana