McKee announces $81M in federal funds for new learning centers around state. What we know.

Gov. Dan McKee is taking his Learn 365 RI initiative to a new level, planning to spend millions to build new learning centers across the state as part of the project launched earlier this year.

In a White House press call on Tuesday, McKee announced that the state received nearly $82 million in federal funds that would be available to Rhode Island's 39 cities and towns and he intends spend it by the 2026 expiration date.

"This is key for us in Rhode Island in terms of our economic recovery," McKee said. "We know that learning is a major, major challenge for us coming out of the pandemic, not only learning recovery but mental health recovery as well."

Joseph Wender, who directs the Treasury Department's Capital Projects Fund – the source of the money – said the funds will be spent to "construct or rehab multipurpose community facilities accessible to all residents."

Providence will be able to access a chunk of the funds. During a Tuesday briefing, Brian Daniels, director of the state's Office of Management & Budget, said the city could receive around $16 million "if they chose to and wanted to do out-of-school learning and job development and health screening, and do a multipurpose community center."

RI lags Massachusetts in education: Here's how McKee says the state will catch up by 2030.

Most cities and towns have signed on to McKee's learning plan

The announcement comes after McKee announced his Learn 365 RI plan in April, describing it as an initiative to add more optional out-of-school programing around the state to essentially expand the educational year from 180 days to 365 days. However, those extra days would not be part of the actual school calendar.

McKee tapped political adviser Robert Walsh, the former head of the National Education Association Rhode Island – the state's biggest teachers union – to support the effort via a new non profit called Always Learning Rhode Island, though the organization will not be receiving any of the just-announced federal funding, Walsh said.

More: To run his new Learn365RI plan, McKee pulls education veterans from his orbit. Here's who they are.

So far, 31 cities and towns have signed McKee's "compacts" committing them to the program and to developing out-of-school learning opportunities. The governor's office said it will be up to those municipalities as to whether they wish to host one of the governor's learning centers.

Asked whether the money could have been spent on alleviating Rhode Island's housing crisis, McKee described the funds as "targeted" toward "learning, education, jobs and health," suggesting that he could not spend them on boosting seriously low rates of housing construction.

State also receiving $25 million for broadband expansion

As part of Thursday's briefing, it was also announced that Rhode Island would receive $25 million in federal funds for broadband infrastructure that would impact an estimated 7,500 people. According to the White House, the initiative to expand high-speed, affordable internet came about as a result of the pandemic when people worked and learned from home.

"There’s no question that the pandemic put an end to any policy debate," said Gene Sperling, an American Rescue Plan coordinator and senior adviser to President Joe Biden. "The pandemic created a national teaching moment on the reality that affordable universal broadband was no longer a sometime thing for some families, some small businesses, some communities."

According to the state, about 30% of addresses in Rhode Island still do not have high-speed internet access.

With reporting from Journal staff writer Katherine Gregg.

Editor's note: This story was updated to further clarify Robert Walsh's role and the role of Always Learning Rhode Island with the Learn 365 RI initiative and their relationship to the federal funding.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI is getting $81 million in federal funds to build education centers