Montana OPI encourages school districts to use federal COVID relief money

HELENA — The federal authorities has put aside a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} for Montana faculty districts, to assist deal with the impacts COVID has had on college students. Now, state schooling leaders are encouraging districts to get artistic with how they use the cash.

Congress authorised three separate rounds of Elementary and Secondary College Emergency Aid, or ESSER, funding – totaling $189.5 billion nationwide and about $600 million for Montana. On Tuesday, Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen organized a panel dialogue on the Montana State Capitol, showcasing what districts across the state have executed with their share of the funding.

“As we speak’s occasion was attempting to advertise the truth that the ESSER funds are very versatile, and demonstrating that completely different districts are, the truth is, utilizing these funds very otherwise,” mentioned Wendi Fawns, of the Montana Workplace of Public Instruction.

Fawns is OPI’s director for ESSER and the associated program EANS, which helps personal colleges. She and her workforce have labored with districts to seek out methods to make use of the funding to handle native wants whereas assembly the necessities of the federal applications.

The largest pot of ESSER cash got here from the American Rescue Plan Act – $382 million. Districts have till September 2024 to make use of that cash. To date, they’ve spent simply over $84 million – about 22%.

Fawns mentioned a lot of the primary spherical of ESSER funding went towards expertise and well being and security precautions. Since then, she mentioned districts have incessantly invested in skilled growth and educational areas like literacy and math, in addition to tying teachers with social and emotional studying.

“I feel that is actually what the story is, is how can we use these funds in a technique to do the whole lot that we at all times simply described about attempting to maintain colleges open?” mentioned Stephen Schreibeis, superintendent of Glendive Public Faculties. “How can we recuperate, after which how can we spend money on that educational restoration?”

Schreibeis was one in all a number of directors who spoke throughout Tuesday’s dialogue. Most mentioned they’d used a few of their ESSER cash for a similar sorts of functions, however in addition they shared extra distinctive concepts they’ve pursued.

Goal Vary College District, close to Missoula, used a few of the cash for an enhanced playground that may also be used as an outside studying house, particularly for social and emotional growth. Eureka Public Faculties bought assist gear for a brand new class on “tiny residence” development, geared toward reaching college students who had been struggling throughout and after the pandemic. The Fergus County superintendent of faculties mentioned, within the rural colleges she oversees, it was a problem to totally clear and sanitize carpet when well being considerations arose, so that they used ESSER cash to put in new laminate flooring.

In Glendive, Schreibeis mentioned they used some ESSER funds to place in a short lived water system at one in all their colleges after it was discovered to have a water high quality problem. He mentioned that allowed them to remain within the constructing as an alternative of returning to distant studying – which he mentioned would have made it more durable to handle ongoing studying loss for the reason that pandemic.

“There are districts who know very clearly what they need to spend the funds on, after which some occasion will happen that adjustments all that,” mentioned Fawns. “So the dialogue then is, ‘Can we alter using funds and what can we do going ahead?’”

Fawns mentioned one in all OPI’s targets is to encourage districts to develop partnerships with organizations of their neighborhood, to allow them to make ESSER {dollars} go farther.

“When ESSER funds can be utilized to assist construct capability between, say, a Rotary Membership or a 4-H agent, with an area faculty district, that makes the programming effort way more sustainable, as a result of you have got a number of sources of funding coming in,” she mentioned.