Alabama State Department Of Education

Alabama State Department of Education, a U.S. government entity and child agency of the Alabama Department of Public Health headquartered in Montgomery, operates exclusively as a federal grant recipient, administering formula and project grants from the U.S. Departments of Education and Agriculture with no federal contract prime or subcontractor footprint. ALSDE competes under no set-aside categories, as it is a state government agency.

ALSDE's federal funding portfolio centers on two core operational missions: administration of K-12 education programs and coordination of child nutrition and emergency food assistance networks. The education-side portfolio includes formula grants for state assessments, special education preschool services, English language acquisition, career and technical education, Title I grants to local educational agencies, student support and academic enrichment, migrant education, rural education, education for homeless youth, and twenty-first century community learning centers. The nutrition-side portfolio comprises formula grants under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and project grants for child nutrition technology innovation and fresh fruit and vegetable distribution. Recent representative awards include a $333.3 million formula grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service for the National School Lunch Program (October 2025–September 2026), a $22.1 million formula grant from the Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education for Student Support and Academic Enrichment (July 2025–September 2026), a $5.38 million formula grant for English Language Acquisition (July 2025–September 2026), and a $1.73 million definitive contract from the Institute of Education Sciences to serve as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) State Coordinator (April 2025–March 2035).

Customer concentration reflects ALSDE's statutory role as the state education agency. The Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education dominates by award count (235 awards) across all education-focused programs, while the Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service carries the second and third largest shares (98 and 93 awards, respectively) across child nutrition and emergency food assistance programs. The Department of Education's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services accounts for 46 awards. The Institute of Education Sciences anchors the largest single award by potential value ($5.1 million across six awards), though this represents 46 percent of combined potential value—a figure substantially understated by the source's $11.2 million combined potential-value total, which conflicts with the $21 billion obligated-dollars line. The obligated-dollars figure reflects the massive scale of pass-through child nutrition funding ALSDE administers to local school districts statewide: ALSDE receives federal dollars, sub-awards them to local educational agencies and school districts, and those sub-awards are recorded as obligated to ALSDE as the recipient.

Activity has remained relatively flat over the past five years (36 awards in 2022, declining to 28 in 2025), with 33 awards reaching ultimate completion in the next twenty-four months. ALSDE operates entirely as a prime recipient; no subcontractor footprint appears in the source. Federal grant distribution patterns show ALSDE functioning as a pass-through administrator: education formula grants flow to local school districts, charter schools, and regional educational organizations; child nutrition grants flow to school districts, food banks, community action agencies, and the Central Alabama Aging Consortium (a named sub-recipient on TEFAP and CSFP awards). ALSDE's role is state-level program administration, compliance monitoring, and coordination with the National Center for Education Statistics and NAEP infrastructure — not procurement or contracting for goods or services.