The California Department of Education (CDE), Adult Education Office, is administering the 2027-2031 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), Title II: Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) competition for adult education and literacy services in California. Although the underlying funding is federal, this is a California-administered state competition and is therefore California-lane owned.
Funding and eligibility
CDE lists $99,215,669 in total available funding. Awards are variable, pay-for-performance reimbursable grants. Eligible providers include institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations and other qualified agencies, including public and private nonprofit agencies, libraries, public housing authorities, eligible consortia, and other organizations that are legally constituted and qualified to do business in California. Applicants must establish demonstrated effectiveness and satisfy CDE eligibility screening requirements.
Two-part submission process
Part One is a mandatory Eligibility Screening. The current CDE online screening portal states that all organizations intending to deliver AEFLA-funded services must submit provider information, demonstrated-effectiveness data, a pre-award risk assessment, and applicable audit documentation by October 6, 2026 at 4:59 p.m. Pacific Time (PT). Only providers that pass screening are invited to Part Two.
Part Two requires administrative and fiscal information, prior-year and projected enrollment data, certifications and approvals, and narrative responses. The dedicated Eligibility Screening portal states that final applications are due December 10, 2026 at 4:59 p.m. PT. A separate current California Adult Education landing page instead says applicants must submit all portions of the application on or before December 15, 2026. Because those two authoritative CDE-supported portal surfaces conflict, Atlas is treating the final application deadline as unresolved pending authoritative clarification.
Match, scoring, and current hold
The CDE funding profile states that a match is required. The current RFA page links a separate 2027-2031 Glossary and Scoring Rubric and a September 16, 2026 errata. The errata changes the critical-date table for the appeal milestone and adjusts word counts in the Pre-Award Risk Assessment Questionnaire; all other dates are stated to remain unchanged. Atlas has verified the existence of the current scoring supplement but has not yet been able to extract and validate its complete current point structure from the CDE DOCX through the available source path.
Verification status: HOLD. Do not publish, score, create applicant outreach, or begin organization-specific package work until the conflicting final deadline is authoritatively resolved and the current scoring rubric is fully validated. The exact Part One screening deadline is verified, but the controlling California rules require complete deadline and scoring verification before advancement.