Mansfield School District

Mansfield School District, doing business as Mansfield Public School, is a U.S. local government school district in Mansfield, Arkansas, that acts as a prime recipient of federal education and nutrition grants and as a sub-recipient of pass-through funding from the Department of Education Arkansas and the Department of Agriculture. The district does not hold federal contracts; its federal engagement is entirely grant-funded.

The district's grant footprint centers on K–12 education and child nutrition programs. As a prime recipient, Mansfield Public School holds Indian Education Formula Grants to LEAs (Local Educational Agencies) awarded by the Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education on a recurring annual basis (awards issued July 1, 2022 through July 1, 2026, with ultimate completion dates one year out). The district is also a prime recipient of a cooperative agreement from the Department of Health and Human Services Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, awarded August 1, 2025 and running through July 31, 2027, under the FDA Research Study of Contaminants in School Meals. That initiative, titled "FRESH Network: Assisting Mansfield Schools with Understanding Contaminants in School Meals and Transitioning to Better Food Systems," pilots a transformative school meal model through nutritional and contaminant testing of vendor-supplied and scratch-cooked meals, student engagement activities including taste tests and surveys, professional development for school nutrition teams, purchase of kitchen equipment such as combi ovens, integration of farm-fresh ingredients, and development of aligned curriculum for Career and Technical Education and health-related classes. The project is led in partnership with Wellness in the School, Thaden School, and Healthy Flavors Arkansas.

As a sub-recipient, Mansfield Public School receives the majority of its federal dollars through the Department of Education Arkansas, the state pass-through agent. Over the past four years, the district has received sub-award funding for Title I (salaries for personnel assisting teachers and administrators, student achievement materials, tutoring programs, professional development, parent engagement); Student Support and Academic Enrichment (SSAE) programs (well-rounded education, school conditions, technology and digital literacy); Early Intervention Services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for children ages 3–5, including speech, occupational, and physical therapy; special education services for students with disabilities; teacher and principal quality improvement; and federal child nutrition programs (breakfast, lunch, and after-school snacks reimbursements from the Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service). The district also receives sub-award funding for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP), which provides free fresh fruits and vegetables to elementary school students during and outside meal service periods.

Customer concentration is high and skews toward education and nutrition funding. The Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service together account for 96% of recent awards (23 and 19 awards respectively across the source window). The Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, the Department of Health and Human Services Food and Drug Administration, and smaller components round out the active set. The district's role is overwhelmingly as a sub-recipient (68% of awards) rather than prime recipient (32%), reflecting the structure of federal education funding in which state departments of education serve as primary grantees and school districts draw allocations through pass-through awards. Activity has remained relatively flat across the past five years (ranging from one to fourteen awards per year), with two awards facing ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months.