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Under Section 5231(a) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by Every Student Succeeds Act, for the purposes of eligibility and allocations for the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), a local educational agency (LEA) is required to conduct an annual census to determine the number of students in average daily attendance (ADA) in kindergarten through grade 12 at each school served by an LEA. The census must be conducted not earlier than the start of the school year and not later than December 1 of each year.   Even before COVID-19 there was confusion in the field about how to determine ADA for REAP.  However, the impact of COVID-19 brought to the Department’s attention that the ESEA does not clearly define how this census should be conducted. Additionally, section 8101(1) of the ESEA includes a definition of ADA that differs from the process outlined in section 5231 of the ESEA. Under Section 8101(1), the definition of ADA is: (i) the aggregate number of days of attendance of all students during a school year; divided by (ii) the number of days school is in session during that year [20 U.S.C. 7801(1)] and applies except as provided otherwise by State law and elsewhere in the ESEA. The purpose of this rulemaking is to clarify the process for calculating ADA for REAP, including the census determination process, under Section 5231(a) of the ESEA.