Grants to South Dakota nonprofit organizations, school districts, IHEs, tribal schools, for-profits, and local governments to provide students with academic enrichment activities. A Notice of Intent must be submitted prior to applying. Required registrations may take several weeks to complete. Funding is intended to establish or expand community learning centers. Programs must be located in public school facilities or in facilities that are at least as available and accessible to the students served as if the program were located in a public elementary, middle, or secondary school.

Centers provide a range of high-quality services to support student learning and development, including tutoring and mentoring, homework help, academic enrichment (such as hands-on science or technology programs), and community service opportunities, as well as music, arts, sports and cultural activities. Centers must provide academic enrichment activities to students that attend high-poverty or Title 1 school-wide schools to help them meet state and local standards in core subjects especially reading, and mathematics. At the same time, centers help working parents by providing a safe environment for students when school is not in session.

The Department shall give priority to applications meeting one or both of the following criteria.

1. Applications targeting services to students attending schools that have been identified as Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) schools or Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) schools. The list of those identified schools is found in Supporting Documents below.
2. To increase geographic diversity amongst grantees, the state will offer preference points on applications that propose to serve eligible schools in a South Dakota public school district that have not been served with a 21CCLC grant or subgrant funds since the 2020- 2021 school year.

Applicants must propose an array of inclusive and supervised services that include expanded learning opportunities (such as enriched instruction, tutoring, or homework assistance) for children. These activities must work towards achievement of the three goals listed below.

1. Provide opportunities for academic enrichment, including providing tutorial services to help students meet the challenging state academic standards.
2. Offer students a broad array of additional services, programs and activities. These are including but not limited to: youth development, health and nutrition, counseling, art, music, financial literacy, etc.
3. Offer families of students served opportunities for active and meaningful engagement in their children's education, including opportunities for literacy and related educational support.

To receive a grant under this program, applicants must provide services that address the absolute priority (#1) and supplement with other program activities (#2), as described here: https://doe.sd.gov/21CCLC/documents/Guidelines-23.pdf#page=7