Avella Area School District

Avella Area School District, a local government school district headquartered in Avella, Pennsylvania, receives federal grants as a prime recipient and receives pass-through sub-awards from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, operating overwhelmingly in a sub-recipient capacity (84% of recent awards) rather than as an independent prime grantee.

The district's federal footprint is dominated by two customer agencies accounting for 100% of awards: the Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (55 awards) and the Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (33 awards), with a single award from the Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. The Food and Nutrition Service awards fund the National School Lunch Program and related child nutrition entitlements — reimbursements for meals and milk provided to school children through approved sites. The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education awards include formula grant participation under the Small, Rural School Achievement Program (a prime recipient vehicle), with annual awards issued July 1 and completing September 30 each fiscal year; recent prime awards span 2022 through 2026, with the most recent prime grant issued July 1, 2026 and completing September 30, 2027. Sub-awards flowing through the Pennsylvania Department of Education include child nutrition reimbursements, Title I-A supplemental academic achievement funding (targeting schools failing or at-risk of failing state academic standards), teacher and principal quality improvement grants, well-rounded education and school technology initiatives, and American Rescue Plan Act emergency education recovery funding distributed proportional to federal Title I-A allocation.

Activity has grown substantially year over year — five awards in 2022 to twenty-three in 2025 — with only one award reaching ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and therefore minimal recompete exposure in that window. Combined dollars obligated across all eighty-nine awards total $2.6 million. The district operates in a fundamentally different capacity than federal contractors: as a school district, it functions as an eligible recipient for entitlement-based child nutrition reimbursements and formula-driven K-12 education grants, with the majority of federal funding flowing through state intermediaries (Pennsylvania Department of Education) to support classroom operations, meals programs, and academic interventions rather than procurement or service contracting.