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• Participation in Opportunity Fund and SSBG programs was high. Forty of 41 Delaware LEAs applied for and received flexible Opportunity Fund monies.
• Although initial allocations for the flexible Opportunity Fund and SSBG K–3 basic special education funding programs were made equitably on a per-pupil basis, the actual fiscal year 2020 per-pupil amounts that LEAs expended differed substantially based on which investments LEAs made, how much of their allocation they left unspent, and differences across LEAs in pay scale and experience levels for staff hires.
• The most frequent proposed use of both Opportunity Fund and SSBG monies was to hire new staff.
• As of April 2020, LEAs reported that 71 percent of their 185 total proposed flexible Opportunity Fund investments were fully implemented.
• LEAs left 30 percent of Opportunity Fund FY 2020 mental health allocations unspent by the end of the year.
• The Opportunity Fund mental health program had greater inequality in allocated funding across qualifying schools because LEA applications drove the per-school allocated amounts.
• Charter school LEAs spent down their flexible Opportunity Funds and SSBG K–3 allocations more fully than did traditional public school districts.
• LEA leaders were mostly likely to cite new staff and additional PD as the investments they perceived as most effective for improving academic outcomes among LI, EL, and special education students.
• Despite COVID-19, most LEAs continued to use their Opportunity Fund and SSBG investments during spring 2020, modifying some staff roles to better serve students and families via remote learning.

This report is the first of three annual reports evaluating the implementation and effects of two newly expanded Delaware weighted education funding programs, the Opportunity Fund and the Student Success Block Grant (SSBG). The Opportunity Fund provides two streams of financial support — a flexible fund for local education agencies (LEAs) to fund staff, curricula, or services that serve low-income (LI) and English learner (EL) students and a second fund for either mental health supports or reading supports for high-need schools. The SSBG also provides two streams — one offering funding to LEAs based on the number of K–3 basic special education enrollees and a second that covers the hiring of reading interventionists at high-need elementary schools.

The authors examine Opportunity Fund and SSBG programs implementation and emerging best practices according to LEA leaders in 2019–2020. Specifically, they examine how LEAs planned to use the funds and how they were actually used; expenditures under the funding mechanisms; and LEA leaders' reported barriers to implementing their plans and best practices for serving EL, LI, and special education students.

The report will be of interest to Delaware state-level policymakers in the executive and legislative branches, including Delaware Department of Education and legislative staff, as well as other stakeholders in the public and private sectors interested in the potential for strategic investments in the early elementary grades to improve student outcomes. The findings should be of interest to policymakers in other parts of the United States who are considering or making similar investments.

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