Dear County and District Superintendents, Special Education Local Plan Area Directors, Special Education Administrators at County Offices, Special Education Program Directors, Nonpublic School Directors, and WorkAbility I Program Coordinators:

2024−25 Workability I Grant Update

This correspondence supersedes the June 4, 2024, guidance regarding the upcoming fiscal year (FY) 2024–25 change to the WorkAbility I (WAI) grant award due to the inability to distribute WAI grant funds to Nonpublic schools (NPS).

The California Department of Education (CDE) will be issuing a Request for Applications (RFA) to redistribute $1,306,755 million in WAI grant funds through a competitive process to select grantees to implement WAI programs. The RFA will be posted for the public to access via the CDE website. Information on the distribution of the RFA is forthcoming at the end of August 2024.

While the CDE acknowledges that any change in grant funding processes may pose potential challenges for those affected parties, the fiscal change is due to the constitutional restrictions with the funding source for WAI, which is Proposition 98 State funds (Section 8 of Article XVI, Section 8 and Section 8.5 of Article XVI of the California Constitution) and can only be awarded to public schools and other local educational agencies (LEAs).

Moving forward, any NPS that previously applied for direct WAI grant funding should consult their contracting LEAs to discuss their options for serving the transition needs of the students enrolled in their programs.
The CDE will continue to collaborate with our educational partners to ensure ongoing support of Transition Services for students with disabilities in California. We appreciate your patience with this process. If you have any questions regarding this subject, please contact the WAI CDE Team by email at Workability1@cde.ca.gov.

Sincerely,

Rachel Heenan, Ed.D, Director Special Education Division

RC: HH

cc: Noelia Hernandez, Education Administrator I, Special Education Division