Florida was one of 10 states awarded federal Race to the Top education grants, but Alachua County school board officials are unaware of how the county will spend the money.
On Tuesday, it was announced Florida was awarded $700 million after state representatives submitted a second 354-page application for the grant.
The grant lists a set of goals for schools to work toward, including increasing student scores on national assessment tests, increasing the amount of students earning at least a year of college credit and a decrease in the achievement gap between whites and minority groups.
Alachua County officials are unsure of how they will spend the money.
"Right now, we are still in limbo," said Jackie Johnson, Alachua County School Board spokeswoman. "We don't know how much money we are going to receive or what we will be required to spend it on."
Half of the grant money will be kept by the state and the rest will be divided among counties but not until each has submitted an application.
"We don't know if we are going to have the flexibility to do anything other than what the grant requires," Johnson said.
Depending on the amount of money allotted, school board officials would like to improve teacher training, buy more class materials and hire additional teachers.
County officials would also like to extend the school day in higher-risk schools to allow for extra FCAT-instruction time, a program they started with The School Improvement Grant, a previous grant awarded to the county, which allots $75,000 each year for three consecutive years to Charles W. Duval Elementary, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Elementary School and Hawthorne Middle and High School, Johnson said.
But county officials expect to receive less money from the Race to the Top funds than the previous grant.
"Obviously that is a much, much bigger amount of money than what we can expect from The Race to the Top grant," Johnson said.
