Over the summer, a Final Rule was published that describes substantial changes to DRS. We’ve now reached the effective period for the rule change.
The Final Rule published in the Federal Register clearly states “the Final Rule is effective on October 27, 2020.” According to the Final Rule, the revised DRS conditions are in effect as of today. Yet, in the OHS Program Instruction (PI) released on August 27, 2020, the final rule effective date was communicated as November 9, 2020. If you have questions about this discrepancy, we encourage you to reach out to your program specialist.
If your program is required to compete for funding in the upcoming round of DRS, you might be anxiously awaiting the release of your program’s Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA). The FOAs were initially forecasted for release in September. The forecast was updated to October 7 after the Final Rule was issued and the Office of Head Start (OHS) issued redeterminations for many programs that expected to compete in DRS.
The October 7 forecast date has now passed, and forecasts have not been updated on grants.gov. Typically, if there is going to be a major shift in timeline, OHS will update the forecasts to reflect such. Since no new information has been communicated, we continue to expect that FOAs will be released soon.
While you wait, consider checking out some of our relevant blog posts from past rounds of DRS. 5 Factors That Make a Difference in DRS Proposal Development and How to Use the Wait for DRS to Enhance Proposal Competitiveness may be useful to your program.
Please be in touch if your program is competing for funding in DRS and needs help. We are at capacity for comprehensive grant writing and grant coaching, though we offer a variety of services to support programs in DRS. Consider a quality assurance review, grants.gov submission support, or our DRS toolkit to guide you through the process. Contact us to learn more.
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