Districts Are Cutting Vendors First Post-ESSER. Here’s How to Get Reclassified as “Essential.”
The federal stimulus is gone. The March 28, 2026 deadline to liquidate ESSER dollars passed with no further extensions, leaving as much as $3 billion in already-obligated contracts stranded across 41 states, and the 2026-27 fiscal year that began July 1 is the first fully stimulus-free budget K-12 has run since the pandemic. Selling to schools after ESSER funding ended…
