The COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to reconsider the approach and delivery of public education. With a large infusion of one-time federal relief aid and a depth of need among students most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that the system is still trying to understand, state and local education leaders will need to plan for both (1) short-term investments to accelerate learning and address student well-being and (2) long-term structural changes to the education system. To ensure that the quality of the U.S. education system continues to improve even after the one-time federal aid is gone, education leaders will want to consider how to use one-time funding strategically in a way that fuels ongoing improvement in student outcomes for years to come. This brief provides an overview of three strategies for planning for sustainability, or long-term improvements in local and state education systems, when investing one-time federal funds. The strategies include: (1) segmenting or organizing investments; (2) prioritizing investments with long-term returns on student outcomes and future cost savings; and (3) modeling investments over the next few years. [For Brief 2, "Adapting a Cardinal Rule of Finance: Five Strategies for Using One-Time Federal Funding on School Staffing," see ED615944.]