Indian Education Discretionary Grant Programs; Professional Development Program

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION <CFR>34 CFR Part 263</CFR> <RIN>RIN 1810-AB70</RIN> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID ED-2024-OESE-0008]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Indian Education Discretionary Grant Programs; Professional Development Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Department of Education. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final regulations. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Education (Department) amends the regulations that govern the Professional Development (PD) program, authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended (ESEA), to establish priorities, requirements, and a definition for the program, including a priority for educator retention projects. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> These regulations are effective February 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Linda Brake, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 987-0796. Email: <E T="03">linda.brake@ed.gov.</E> If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1. A summary of the rule is available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/document/ED-2024-OESE-0008-0001.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Purpose of this Regulatory Action:</E> Under ESEA section 6122(a)(4), one of the purposes of the PD program is to develop and implement initiatives to promote the retention of effective teachers, principals, and school leaders who have a record of success in helping low-achieving Indian students improve their academic achievement, outcomes, and preparation for postsecondary education or employment. The Department amends the program regulations to support implementation of this aspect of the program purpose. <E T="03">Assistance Listing Number (ALN):</E> 84.299B. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Through this regulatory action, we amend part 263 of title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations. We published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for this program on July 29, 2024 (89 FR 60844). In the preamble of the NPRM, we discussed the major changes proposed in that document. In these final regulations, in addition to the changes proposed in the NPRM, we are making the following revisions to ensure consistency throughout the regulations: • In the NPRM, we proposed updates to the regulations to include part-time participants (89 FR 60844, 60847), but inadvertently did not make the updates in all places where it was necessary. We are making those related changes in §§ 263.3 (definition of “stipend”) and 263.11(a), and we are removing the definition of “full-time student,” as it is no longer necessary. • In § 263.5(a)(2), consistent with the other application requirements in paragraph (a), we are adding “as applicable” to reflect that PD program competitions may focus on a subset of the allowable activities, such as retention. • We are revising § 263.10(b)(3) to confirm that, consistent with § 263.10(f), the deferred payback option is available for eligible full-time volunteer work “up to a period of 36 months.” <E T="03">Public Comment:</E> In response to our invitation in the NPRM, we did not receive any substantive and/or relevant comments on the proposed regulations. Except for minor technical revisions and the conforming changes summarized above, there are no differences between the proposed regulations and these final regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Orders 12866, 13563, and 14094</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Regulatory Impact Analysis</HD> Under Executive Order 12866, OMB must determine whether this regulatory action is “significant” and, therefore, subject to the requirements of the Executive Order and subject to review by OMB. Section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866, as amended by Executive Order 14094, defines a “significant regulatory action” as an action likely to result in a rule that may— (1) Have an annual effect on the economy of $200 million or more (as of 2022 but adjusted every 3 years by the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) of OMB for changes in gross domestic product), or adversely affect in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local, territorial, or Tribal governments; (2) Create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or planned by another agency; (3) Materially alter the budgetary impacts of entitlements, grants, user fees, or loan programs or the rights and obligations of recipients thereof; or (4) Raise legal or policy issues for which centralized review would meaningfully further the President's priorities, or the principles stated in the Executive order, as specifically authorized in a timely manner by the Administrator of OIRA in each case. This regulatory action is not a significant regulatory action subject to review by OMB under section 3(f)(4) of Executive Order 12866, as amended by Executive Order 14094. We have also reviewed these regulations under Executive Order 13563, which supplements and explicitly reaffirms the principles, structures, and definitions governing regulatory review established in Executive Order 12866. To the extent permitted by law, Executive Order 13563 requires that an agency— (1) Propose or adopt regulations only on a reasoned determination that their benefits justify their costs (recognizing that some benefits and costs are difficult to quantify); (2) Tailor its regulations to impose the least burden on society, consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives and taking into account—among other things and to the extent practicable—the costs of cumulative regulations; (3) In choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, select those approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety, and other advantages; distributive impacts; and equity); (4) To the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather than the behavior or manner of compliance a regulated entity must adopt; and (5) Identify and assess available alternatives to direct regulation, including economic incentives—such as user fees or marketable permits—to encourage the desired behavior, or provide information that enables the public to make choices. Executive Order 13563 also requires an agency “to use the best available techniques to quantify anticipated present and future benefits and costs as accurately as possible.” OIRA has emphasized that these techniques may include “identifying changing future compliance costs that might result from technological innovation or anticipated behavioral changes.” We are issuing these regulations only on a reasoned determination that their benefits justify their costs. In choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, we selected those approaches that maximize net benefits. Based on an analysis of anticipated costs and benefits, we believe that these regulations are consistent with the principles in Executive Order 13563. We also have determined that this regulatory action will not unduly interfere with State, local, territorial, and Tribal governments in the exercise of their governmental functions. In accordance with these Executive orders, the Department has assessed the potential costs and benefits, both quantitative and qualitative, of this regulatory action. The potential costs associated with this regulatory action are those resulting from statutory requirements and those we have determined as necessary for administering the Department's programs and activities. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Costs and Benefits</HD> We believe that the potential costs associated with the regulatory changes will be minimal, and the benefits will exceed these costs. For Professional Development grants, there will be no additional time or cost for applicants developing an application under the new priorities and application requirements. The benefits include allowing the program to better meet its mission of recruiting and retaining qualified Indian individuals to become educators. We do not anticipate grantees needing additional time to report full-time participant payback information in the Professional Development Program Data Collection System (PDPDCS). The costs of carrying out these activities would continue to be paid for with program funds. The benefits also include enhancing project design and quality of services to better meet the objectives of the program and the needs of potential grantees with more educators remaining in their current positions and increasing their impact on Indian students and communities, as well as more accurately calculating the length of payback for participants in part-time training. We added payback deferral options for participants who serve as full-time volunteers with Indian Tribes, because it will provide them with opportunities to better understand the educational needs of Indian students, while helping to build the capacity of Tribes, and for participants who experience a temporary disability that affects the participant's ability to complete their payback obligations. These deferral pathways will provide participants more flexibility and help them obtain experience that fulfills their service obligation and provides relief to Tribal communities. Elsewhere in this section under <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995,</E> we identify and explain burdens specifically associated with information collection requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Regulatory Flexibility Act Certification</HD> The Department certifies that these regulations will not have a substantial economic impact on a substantial n ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 34k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━