South-Carolina

SC schools aren’t toppling off funding cliff, but expiring federal cash will mean cuts

Published

3 months ago

July 6, 2024

SC schools aren’t toppling off funding cliff, but expiring federal cash will mean cuts

South Carolina schools received more than $3.2 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds since 2020 to help contend with the pandemic’s impact.

Districts across the state and nation tapped the funds to pay for tutoring, summer camps, air filtration systems and salaries, among other needs. In all, the federal government showered $190 billion on America’s schools through three waves of funding known as ESSER, short for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund.

Researchers and administrators said the cash shored up student achievement during the worst of the pandemic, but it also came with an expiration date: Sept. 30, 2024.

With that deadline speeding toward them, district leaders must figure out how to adjust budgets that benefited from the infusion of federal dollars that will no longer be there, even though data and educators say students still need help in critical subject areas — a funding dilemma some have dubbed the ESSER cliff.

The funding halt will mean cutbacks to programs and staff who help students learn, another blow to a school environment where math scores still lag behind pre-pandemic numbers and rising numbers of students are missing weeks of instruction each year.

But administrators across the state also told The Post and Courier they’ve been able to fit many of the federally funded jobs and initiatives into their regular budgets as they sought to avoid an abrupt end to important services as much as possible.

“We are not on the ESSER cliff,” said Laura Showe, the Florence One school district’s chief financial officer.

How districts spent their millions

For four summers, thousands of students near Columbia have felt the impact of the Richland Two district’s ESSER dollars directly.

The federal funding let the district put on a full-day summer instructional program, called SOAR, keeping thousands of elementary and middle schoolers in the classroom for part of the break. The program helps students make up their deficits from the previous year or get a jump on the next.

Since starting as a necessity in 2021 — when the district officials said they realized the depth of COVID-19’s impact on students’ academics and mental health — the program also gave students access to psychologists and counselors in a bid to tamp down an increase in anxiety and behavioral issues.

The students were at school for a full day, helping keep up the routine the school year provides and giving kids more of the social interaction they might have lost during pandemic lockdowns.

“We gave them a real school experience,” said Arthur Newton, the district’s executive director of elementary instruction.

Federal COVID aid funded jobs, programming in Columbia schools. But money is running out.

A regular school experience is exactly what students lost as the pandemic hit in 2020, forcing schools to shift into potentially isolating and routine-shattering online learning, to which Newton attributes a rise in “school anxiety” — and which correlates to a sharp plunge in students’ test scores.

Thanks to federal funding requirements, the first ESSER funding infusion was largely aimed at the new reality of remote learning and making schools safer once students started to return, seeking pre-pandemic normalcy. Schools put money toward extra cleaning, wellness programs, air filtration systems and more furniture to help space out students.

The two larger rounds of funding that followed widened the requirements, more broadly addressing students’ pandemic-driven learning loss. Schools implemented summer programs similar to Richland Two’s SOAR alongside other academic aids such as tutoring, after-school programs and more instructional staff.

Charleston County schools used $52.5 million to hire more support staff in schools and provide professional development for teachers, and set aside $30.2 million to address the unique needs of certain student demographics such as multilingual learners, students with disabilities and those in poverty.

In Iva, the Anderson Three district hired a multilingual learners teacher to serve that growing population. Chester County’s schools used the money to add 18 reading and math interventionists, and Fort Mill schools brought on seven new positions.

Some districts, including Aiken and Anderson Three, also made capital improvement projects such as building repairs.

“This took away funds that could have been used in other academic areas, but we felt like the capital improvements were necessary due to the stipulations of the funding and what it could be used for,” Anderson Three spokesman Dylan McCullough said.

What’s staying, what’s going

With ESSER dollars evaporating a month into the 2024-25 school year, district budget writers had to make hard decisions: Which federally funded initiatives can they fit into their annual budgets, and which ones can they afford?

In Charleston, the district’s new weighted student funding model prioritizes the needs of students disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, distributing $32.8 million of additional funds above what schools usually receive based on schools’ amount of students in poverty, multilingual learners and students with disabilities.

Campuses will be able to maintain the majority of their personnel and programs associated with ESSER, said Daniel Prentice, the district’s chief finance officer, in an interview with The Post and Courier.

Principals will be in charge of distributing the funds they receive and will decide how to spend the money based on the needs of their schools. The district has developed a list of guardrails and guidelines that indicate how funds are allowed to be spent.

Schools that wanted to retain positions supported by ESSER funds completed an impact report to link the success of the position to student outcome, Superintendent Anita Huggins said, which was scored by the district to figure out which programs were effective enough to continue.

“Anything that didn’t meet the threshold for being a truly effective program moving forward wasn’t continued on virtue of its effectiveness, not on virtue of the availability of funding,” Prentice said.

The district spent $3 million on projects that ultimately were not authorized under the relief program, which spurred allegations that Huggins and previous superintendent Don Kennedy improperly directed some of the funding. Huggins has denied the allegations, which came in a June letter written by a former executive director of the district’s federal programs.

Elsewhere in the state, administrators said many programs and jobs previously funded by ESSER dollars will continue.

Students in West Columbia and Cayce will continue to get after-school tutoring in the Lexington Two district. In the Upstate, Greenville County schools will continue their summer programming, as will Pickens County campuses, which received outside support from the United Way to keep its summer reading initiatives.

Employees in Florence One will keep a health insurance subsidy, which was originally ESSER-funded and covers up to 100 percent of insurance premiums for the district’s lowest-paid employees.

SC school districts spent $1.8B of federal pandemic relief cash. How is largely unknown.

But the simple math that comes from falling funding means cuts will happen, leaving students with fewer resources to aid their learning.

Richland Two’s summer instructional program, for example, won’t continue into the summer of 2025, and neither will some extended day programming, leaving schools to try and avoid the “summer slide” themselves. It and neighboring Richland One, in Columbia, are cutting nearly 200 positions combined, with Richland One also trimming back its Summer Learning Academy and mental health programs.

“Without having the instruction, without having the social-emotional aspect of SOAR, common sense would tell me that students aren’t going to always get what they need,” Newton said of the summer program’s end.

Other districts are pulling back spending from some educational software tools.

Finance officials often tried to avoid using the one-time funding for recurring costs such as salaries, but at times did so anyway.

Some, such as Pickens County, hired interventionists for just two years, knowing from the beginning that they’d be phased out when the funding expired.

Richland One and Greenville offered positions elsewhere in the district to ESSER-funded employees whose jobs were being cut — a consolation made easier by teacher shortage-fueled vacancies, another obstacle to student achievement.

Did the spending help?

A pair of studies released in June found that the federal funding helped student achievement in math and English nationwide.

“The federal investment in helping public school students recover from the pandemic’s academic fallout has paid off. Not only did it lead to increased test score gains, but the investment also significantly reduced the educational inequality generated by the pandemic,” Sean Reardon, a Stanford education professor and co-author of a study from the Education Recovery Scorecard, said in a statement.

But the benefits weren’t spread equally.

The pandemic hit low-income students and students of color the hardest academically, but a paper from the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research found that the federal aid’s benefits were “concentrated” among White students — though the money went further, and helped more, in poorer districts.

Even with the federal money’s boost to schools’ recoveries, South Carolina students still struggle to make up lost instruction, particularly in math, leaving educators hoping the resources and training they gained from ESSER will continue to aid students’ recovery.

Caitlin Herrington contributed from Greenville, and Erin Weeks contributed from Aiken.

Charleston County School board members approve budget with $8,000 teacher pay raise

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South-Carolina

Ole Miss EDGE Princely Umanmielen Ruled OUT For Game vs. South Carolina

Published

1 hour ago

October 5, 2024

Press Room

Ole Miss EDGE Princely Umanmielen Ruled OUT For Game vs. South Carolina

The No. 12 Ole Miss Rebels are hoping to return to the win column on Saturday against the South Carolina Gamecocks, but they will have to do so without one of their star defenders.

Edge rusher Princely Umanmielen was ruled out of Saturday’s game for the Rebels, according to the latest injury report released by the Southeastern Conference on Friday. He suffered an injury against Kentucky last week and was previously listed as “questionable” on the report that was released on Wednesday.

So far this season, Umanmielen, a Florida transfer, has tallied 13 total tackles (six TFLs) and 3.5 sacks.

Some players who were listed as questionable on Wednesday were upgraded to “probable” on Friday, including RB Matt Jones and LB TJ Dottery. RB Henry Parrish is still listed as questionable going into Saturday, and WR Tre Harris’ name has been removed from the report entirely.

The final injury report for this game will be released 90 minutes prior to kickoff. The game is set to begin at 2:30 p.m. CT, and it will be televised on ESPN.

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South-Carolina

Ole Miss vs. South Carolina prediction: Who wins, and why?

Published

9 hours ago

October 4, 2024

Press Room

Ole Miss vs. South Carolina prediction: Who wins, and why?

SEC football returns to the gridiron this weekend as No. 12 Ole Miss looks to rebound from its first loss with a road trip to South Carolina in college football’s Week 6 action on Saturday. Let’s check in with our updated prediction for the game.

Ole Miss bulldozed its non-conference schedule but started 0-1 in SEC play after a surprising loss at home to Kentucky in which the team’s top-ranked offense was slowed and the defense allowed a late touchdown.

South Carolina is a mixed bag offensively, averaging 40th in FBS in rushing production but is just 107th nationally in passing output, sitting at 3-1 after a big win over Akron and with a loss to LSU and a victory over Kentucky in SEC conference play.

What can we expect in this week’s game?

Here’s what you should watch out for as Ole Miss and South Carolina face off in this Week 6 college football matchup, with our updated prediction.

1. Gamecocks up front. South Carolina’s defensive front presents a formidable challenge for the Ole Miss offense and can bring some serious speed and pressure off the edges.

Kyle Kennard has 5.5 sacks and Dylan Stewart has another 2.5, while Rebels quarterback Jaxson Dart was sacked 4 times last week.

As a team, the Gamecocks have 14 sacks and 11 tackles for loss, and come into the game ranked 4th among SEC teams with 161 passing yards allowed and have surrendered 17 points on average.

2. Rebels on the attack. Despite last week’s struggles, this is still a potent offense led by a quarterback who is averaging 363 yards per game and has 13 touchdowns on the year.

And despite Carolina’s overall defensive success, there could be some holes on the back end after the unit allowed long scoring plays to the likes of Old Dominion and Akron.

Ole Miss should find some room to send its receivers in the deeper portion of the field with the likes of Tre Harris, the offense’s only real hope last week and the nation’s most productive pass catcher, in addition to former Gamecock transfer Antwane Wells, to test this secondary.

If Dart and the Rebel blockers can adapt to Carolina’s speedy pass rush early on by getting the ball out quickly, they can force this defense to spread out and diminish some of the Gamecocks’ advantages near the line.

3. Stop the QB. It’s either LaNorris Sellers or Robby Ashford for Carolina at quarterback, and both are a real challenge for the Rebels’ front seven tacklers, each presenting as credible rushing threats who can extend plays and create their own with a battery of scripted and unscripted runs.

Sellers built a two-touchdown lead against LSU before leaving with an ankle injury, and there’s some question around if he’ll be healthy. If not, Ashford is more than capable, passing for 243 yards and running for another 133 yards last week.

Most analytical models still side with the Rebels to take care of the Gamecocks.

That includes the College Football Power Index, a computer prediction model that uses data points from both teams to simulate games 20,000 times to pick winners.

Ole Miss is projected to win the game in the majority 75.2 percent of the computer’s most recent simulations.

That left South Carolina as the expected winner in the remaining 24.8 percent of sims.

Ole Miss is projected to be 10.3 points better than South Carolina on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s latest forecast.

More … Ole Miss vs. South Carolina prediction: What the analytics say

Ole Miss is a 9 point favorite against South Carolina, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 53.5 points for the game.

And it set the moneyline odds for Ole Miss at -350 and for South Carolina at +280 to win outright.

Most wagers project the Gamecocks will make this a game against the Rebels, according to the latest spread consensus picks.

A solid majority — around 60 percent — of bets predict that South Carolina will either upset Ole Miss outright, or keep the game within the point spread.

The other 40 percent of bets expect the Rebels will win the game and cover the spread.

If the first four games of the season felt like the Rebels’ ceiling, last week felt like their floor. The reality of this team is somewhere in the middle.

Carolina boasts two mobile quarterbacks who can give any defense some real headaches, but they’re still playing behind a somewhat suspect line that is susceptible to pressure at times.

Ole Miss comes into the game ranked third nationally in sacks recorded and 1st in FBS in tackles for loss, which should cut into some of Sellers’ or Ashford’s success creating plays.

And while the Gamecocks will create plenty of pressure off the edges and throw Dart out of his rhythm early on, the Rebels have more than enough outlets for the quarterback to dump quick passes to and who can skirt around these midfield defenders and churn out yards after the catch.

College Football HQ picks …

More … Ole Miss vs. South Carolina score prediction by expert model

When: Sat., Oct. 5
Time: 3:30 p.m. Eastern
TV: ESPN network

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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South-Carolina

Why Ole Miss Beats the South Carolina Gamecocks | Locked On Ole Miss Podcast

Published

17 hours ago

October 4, 2024

Press Room

Why Ole Miss Beats the South Carolina Gamecocks | Locked On Ole Miss Podcast

Today’s Locked On Ole Miss Podcast discusses why Ole Miss should win its game against South Carolina this weekend. It is a game where Lane Kiffin and Jaxson Dart will have to overcome a hostile atmosphere directed at Juice Wells, but Dart has answered every question and has not had a losing streak since 2022. Dart and the offense, when they are clicking, are unstoppable, and I expect after this week, they put out their best performance of the season.

Ole Miss needs to utilize the running game this week as it failed to do a week ago against the Kentucky Wildcats. When the offense gets too predictable, it is manageable to play against, but when the running game gets going and Ole Miss attacks the whole field, it becomes a handful.

On Wednesday’s injury report, both Matt Jones and Henry Parrish are listed as questionable which makes it seem like this might be a Ulysses Bentley game against South Carolina. Ole Miss will need to run against the defensive line for the Gamecocks to wear them down during the game.

In our final segment of the day, we put our finishing touches on the South Carolina Gamecocks and talk about some players who might show out on Saturday. We also give our final score predictions for the game.

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