Initial Application Cycle for the $7 Billion FCC Emergency Program

To Fund Student-Home Connectivity for School Year 2021-22

 By

Jeff Simering, Director of Legislation

Though shorthanded, a unanimous Federal Communications Commission (FCC) met its statutory deadline in announcing new rules for the $7 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund to support remote home connectivity for students and staff under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP).  

Since 1997, the FCC has underwritten deeply discounted costs of equipping and connecting schools to the internet through the E-Rate program, but it has not taken the next logical step of connecting students to the internet at home to help with homework and extended learning. The closure of schools has made home connectivity for students and teachers essential to the continuity of schooling across the nation since the pandemic began.

Unfortunately, the nation’s broadband infrastructure has major dead zones in many urban and rural communities, where internet connections are weak or nonexistent. As part of the pandemic recovery legislation, Congress authorized financial assistance to expand home connectivity for students. In December 2020, Congress provided $3.2 billion to the FCC to subsidize internet service providers to cover the discounted costs of devices and broadband services for low-income students – as an alternative to providing funding directly through the nation’s public school system. In the ARP, however, Congress provided another $7.1 billion in March 2021 to cover the full cost of connecting students at home through devices and broadband services funded through the nation’s schools.  This month the FCC announced plans to implement both pandemic-related home-based learning programs.

The new May 10^th order from the FCC establishes the processes and parameters to pay school districts for the reasonable costs of laptops, tablets, routers, modems, hotspots, and broadband services to connect students and staff at home. The FCC through its administering entity will announce an initial application cycle for school districts to apply for connecting students and staff in the upcoming 2021-22 school year (beginning July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022) for those who otherwise would not have adequate devices and broadband service at home. If sufficient funds remain available after this initial application period, additional application cycles would be considered either for requests in 2021-22, reimbursements for prior expenditures for devices and services by schools back to March 1, 2020--or both. The Council of the Great City Schools had recommended to the FCC that school expenditures dating from the 2020 declaration of the national emergency through the entire emergency period be covered to assist school districts that quickly shifted to remote learning and shouldered the cost of millions of devices and broadband connections.

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the administrative entity for the FCC’s E-Rate program, will implement the Emergency Connectivity Fund and work out the operational details of the application and funding process. An initial application window of 45 to 60 days is expected for school district funding requests. Eligible devices and service expenditures for the one-year period beginning July 1, 2021 would be fully paid if the $7 billion appropriation is not exceeded.  If applications outstrip available funding, dollars will be awarded in descending order based on the school district’s poverty percentage used in the E-Rate program. If additional funds remain following the initial application window, additional application cycles for current or prior expenditures may be established. The Council will remain in contact with the Chief Information Officers of the Great City Schools during this process, and it anticipates ongoing outreach with USAC as well.