What the EANS Program Provided to Private Schools During COVID

Last updated 7 days ago. Our resources are updated regularly but please keep in mind that links, programs, policies, and contact information do change.

Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools (EANS) was a federal COVID relief program for nonprofit private schools. Congress provided $5.5 billion in two rounds, but no school received its own federal grant. Instead, each state’s education department provided the services or assistance a school requested, as resources allowed, such as cleaning supplies, protective equipment, and technology for remote learning.

In the first round, a state could also repay a school for most allowable pandemic expenses. The second allowed no reimbursements and served only schools with a significant percentage of low-income students that were most affected by COVID-19. The funding periods have ended. The rules still matter to schools with old bills or program equipment, and to anyone reading EANS spending totals.

Federal funding, state-provided help

Congress established the first EANS round through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2021 (CRRSA Act), dated December 27, 2020. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP Act), dated March 11, 2021, extended the program with a second round. Congress provided $2,750,000,000 for each round.

The governor received the federal award and remained responsible for oversight, while the state educational agency, the state’s education department, administered the program. A participating private school received the services or assistance it requested, subject to available resources, rather than its own federal grant or allocation of funds.

Federal awards reflected each state’s share of private-school children ages 5-17 from families at or below 185 percent of the poverty level, using Census Bureau enrollment data. That formula allocated money among states; it did not promise an identical amount to every school.

Which schools qualified, and why the second round was narrower

Eligible schools were nonprofit elementary or secondary schools that were accredited, licensed, or otherwise operating in accordance with state law, and had existed before March 13, 2020.

Religious schools could participate on the same terms as other eligible private schools, but all EANS assistance had to be secular, neutral, and nonideological.

In the first round, states had to prioritize schools based on both their enrollment of students from low-income families and the severity of COVID-19’s impact. The second round limited assistance to schools that enrolled a significant percentage of low-income students and were most impacted by COVID-19.

A significant percentage meant that at least 40 percent of a school’s students came from low-income families, unless a state proposed a different percentage and the education secretary approved it. For the second round, low-income families were those with incomes at or below 185 percent of the 2020 federal poverty level.

A school was ineligible for either round if it applied for and received a Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan made on or after December 27, 2020. That limit applied for as long as the school took part in EANS. PPP helped businesses keep their workers employed during the COVID-19 crisis. A school that received a PPP loan before December 27, 2020, could still receive EANS services or assistance.

What schools could receive

Allowable assistance included cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment, portable air purification systems, and physical barriers for distancing. It also included expanding capacity to administer coronavirus testing.

Technology assistance could cover hardware, software, internet connectivity, assistive technology, and adaptive equipment for remote or hybrid learning. Hybrid learning combines instruction in person with instruction at a distance.

States could support redevelopment of instructional plans and curricula, along with education and support services for remote or hybrid learning or to address learning loss. Leasing space for safe distancing and reasonable transportation costs were also allowable.

EANS could not provide money to cover a private school’s payroll. A state could separately contract with a private-school teacher for secular EANS services outside that teacher’s school contract and school employment time, under the direct supervision of the state or another public entity. That arrangement paid for a separate public service, rather than subsidizing the teacher’s existing private-school job.

Reimbursement depended on the funding round

The first round could reimburse most allowable COVID-related expenses a school incurred on or after March 13, 2020, provided federal funds, including PPP, had not already reimbursed them.

Some allowable activities could be arranged by the state but could not be reimbursed: sanitation and protective-equipment training, redevelopment of instructional plans, and education or support services for remote or hybrid learning or learning loss. Ventilation improvements were also excluded from reimbursement, except for portable air purification systems. Expenses already reimbursed through a PPP loan before December 27, 2020, could not be reimbursed again.

Consider a school with two first-round bills, one for a portable air purifier and one for staff sanitation training. The state could repay the purifier bill if the school incurred it on or after March 13, 2020, and no other federal program had already covered it. It could not repay the training bill, although it could have arranged that training itself.

The second round prohibited reimbursements to any private school. States could still arrange allowable services directly or through contracts with individuals, associations, agencies, or organizations.

Applications and public control

Schools applied to their state educational agency, which could set reasonable requirements for when and how to apply and what information to include. The state had to make applications available within 30 days of receiving EANS funds and approve or deny each school’s application within 30 days after receiving it.

Applications included the number and percentage of students from low-income families enrolled in the 2019-2020 school year, the pandemic’s impact on the school, and the services or assistance requested.

The federal EANS laws did not require an appeal process for a denied application, although a state could establish one or could be required by state law or procedures to provide appropriate due process.

A public agency had to control the money and retain legal ownership of materials, equipment, and property bought with EANS funds. For example, federal guidance said purchasing new windows for a school with EANS funds would conflict with that rule. If a school bought new windows with its own money to improve ventilation, though, EANS could pay to install them.

Receiving EANS services or assistance, even through reimbursement, did not make a school a recipient of federal financial assistance. As a result, certain federal requirements that apply to such recipients did not directly apply to the school, unless it received federal financial assistance for other purposes.

What the program’s records can tell readers

If a state met the program’s requirements, any money it had not committed within six months of receiving it returned to the governor for uses authorized under a separate fund, the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) II Fund. GEER II could fund childcare, pre-K-12 education, adult education and higher education support in response to COVID-19. The Congressional Research Service noted that EANS expenditure data did not distinguish private-school assistance from funds that returned to governors and were subsequently spent. A total labeled EANS spending therefore cannot, by itself, show how much help private schools received.

In a September 23, 2024, report on Florida, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General found that the state’s second-round application did not adequately establish schools’ eligibility because it allowed a method of estimating low-income enrollment called proportionality data. The method multiplies the number of private-school students living in each Title I school attendance area by the share of public-school students there from low-income families. It found the state’s steps to assess schools’ eligibility in the first round generally adequate. The inspector general also found that Florida lacked formal written procedures for reviewing and approving expenditures. Those findings concern Florida’s administration; they are not a national measure of EANS results or proof that any recipient was ineligible.

The funding periods ended, but closeout had its own rules

The federal funding periods ran through September 30, 2023, for the first round and September 30, 2024, for the second. Money not committed or spent by its deadline is returned to the Treasury. A liquidation extension gives a state more time to pay out program funds committed by the required deadline. In an October 4, 2024, update, New York’s education department said its EANS II liquidation extension had been approved. A school can no longer obtain a new EANS funding commitment; a later payment concerns assistance the state committed before the deadline.

Federal guidance generally required states to remove equipment when it was no longer needed for EANS purposes. Equipment could remain at a school for another allowable federal education purpose, but a state or other public agency had to retain ownership and administrative control.

A laptop in a private-school classroom could therefore remain public property after the emergency. Whether it stayed there or was removed was for the public agency that owned it to decide, not the school.

A school tracing an old bill or deciding what to do with program equipment should contact the state education department that administered its assistance. The federal rules are explained in the U.S. Department of Education’s Frequently Asked Questions: Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools (EANS) Program.