"I am committed to leading the fight on behalf of Maine's rural schools and schools across the nation that need more flexibility and more funding from the federal government in order to meet the needs of their students," said Senator Collins.
Prior to the enactment of REAP, rural school districts received funds calculated solely on enrollment. Two years ago, one Maine district, for example, received $28 to fund a district-wide Safe and Drug-free School program. REAP remedies this problem by allowing rural schools the flexibility to combine federal funds and by increasing overall funding for these small districts. As a result of REAP dollars in Fiscal Year 2002, more than 4,000 school districts received additional funding. In many cases, this doubled, if not tripled their federal allocation, with an average award of around $20,000. As a result of this program, Maine's rural and small schools received an additional $2.1 million in federal funding. In addition, the requirements put in place by the No Child Left Behind legislation have put particular pressure on rural school districts. "REAP helps rural school districts meet these new accountability requirements. While the goal of helping students achieve the new standards is laudable, we need to give school districts the tools to do so."