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Tennessee DOE outlines ESSA discretionary grant monitoring, ePlan submission steps and deadlines
Summary
Tennessee Department of Education staff walked Local Education Agencies through the ESSA discretionary grant monitoring instrument in ePlan, detailing which grants must participate, required responses, submission workflow, deadlines and available technical assistance.
Terry Manning, ESSA compliance manager at the Tennessee Department of Education, led a Feb. 5 webinar explaining how Local Education Agencies (LEAs) should complete the ESSA discretionary grant monitoring instrument in the state’s ePlan system and which grants require participation.
Manning said the monitoring targets LEAs that receive ARP Homeless 1, ARP Homeless 2, ARP Homeless System Navigator funds or the Title III, Part A Immigrant subgrant, and described the electronic instrument, required response types and the submission workflow. "The department prohibits the use of AI tools like Otter in state hosted meetings due to concerns about data security and regulation," Manning said when reviewing department policy for state-hosted meetings.
Why this matters: The monitoring process is the department’s mechanism to check federal ESSA discretionary grant compliance, document performance toward grant goals and identify technical-assistance needs. Responses in ePlan will determine whether an LEA receives findings that require corrective action and follow-up support.
Key requirements and deadlines
- Participation: LEAs receiving ARP Homeless 1, ARP Homeless 2, ARP Homeless System Navigator or Title III, Part A Immigrant subgrants must complete the instrument. Pages are LEA-level only; there is no school-level submission. Manning emphasized that Title III immigrant-page responses must relate only to students served by that subgrant.
- Access: Users with the LEA ESSA discretionary grant director role can log in to ePlan and open Monitoring > Monitoring Instruments > 2025 > ESSA discretionary grant monitoring and click Draft Started on the sections page to begin.
- Response types: The instrument uses dropdown answers (Agree, Disagree, NA) and open-response narrative boxes. Justifications are required only for Disagree selections; narratives must address all parts of open-response questions. LEAs may upload supporting documents but should not upload personally identifiable information and should use ID numbers instead.
- NA and validation: LEAs may mark an entire grant page or sections NA if not applicable, but Manning warned against mistakenly disabling pages that should be completed; an instrument returned for incomplete pages will need correction before final submission.
- Submission workflow: The ESSA discretionary grant director must clear validation errors and change the instrument status to Draft Completed; the director of schools must then mark the instrument LEA Authorized Representative Approved for the instrument to be fully submitted. Manning said many instruments fail to submit because the final LEA authorized representative approval step is not completed.
- Dates: The instrument opened Feb. 5, the instrument submission deadline is March 5 and monitoring results will be posted in ePlan by April 7. Office hours are scheduled 1-2 p.m. Central on Feb. 26 and March 5; additional technical-assistance outside those times is available from the listed contacts.
Monitoring outcomes and follow-up
After submission, the department reviews responses, issues monitoring results in ePlan and provides action steps if findings occur. LEAs must complete any action steps and mark them Yes Approved; once all corrective items are resolved, the instrument will be closed and the LEA notified in ePlan.
Contacts and support
Manning identified Vanessa Waters and Hannah Gribble as additional points of contact for grant-specific questions and technical assistance. He invited attendees to submit questions via chat or email and to attend office hours for walkthroughs of the instrument.
Other reminders and policies
Manning reiterated that uploads are optional but should be clearly labeled and must not contain personally identifiable information, that responses should reflect the current school year, and that the department’s restriction on certain AI tools may result in blocking those tools during state-hosted meetings.
Ending
The webinar included a request for attendee feedback via an evaluation QR code and a reminder to report suspected fraud, waste or abuse of federal funds to the state comptroller using the contact information shown during the presentation.
