Grand Island Public Schools federal COVID relief spending has been allocated in hopes of building a better school district.
The district is spending about half of its ESSER III round of government aid on capital projects. ESSER III is a third round of COVID relief funding authorized as part of the American Rescue Plan Act that was enacted in March 2021.
Building projects approved to receive their share in ESSER III funding are security vestibules, HVAC upgrades, building additions, renovations and updated wiring.
David Jespersen, communications director for Nebraska Department of Education, described ESSER III funding as “a continuation of the recovery process from the code pandemic for schools and students. It allows state and local agencies to take additional steps for continued safe in person instruction, and to address unfinished teaching and learning.”
People are also reading…
He said the guidelines aren’t “very specific,” but must “(address) the needs of schools to help their kids bounce back from the pandemic.”
Effectiveness of ESSER III usage will be evaluated using existing parameters, Jespersen said. That includes graduation rates, absenteeism rates and routine test scores.
Grand Island Public Schools is receiving roughly $18 million in ESSER III funds. As a whole, Nebraska’s qualifying schools received $122 billion.
Stakeholder surveys guided much of the ESSER III decision making. Chief Data Analyst & Organizational Strategist Jonathan Doll designed a survey for parents and stakeholders, exploring possible allowable uses for the funds. Eventually, the district lasered in on what to spend that round of relief funding on.
“I think our building projects are a really good example of that. There (was) 75% support from sta keholders for building projects,” said Ken Schroeder, outgoing GIPS chief financial officer. Community meetings revealed stakeholders were most interested in safety and security vestibules, he said.
More than $2.6 million of ESSER III funds go towards salaries and benefits, making up 15% of the pie.Some of those funds are allocated to create additional positions, like academic support professionals.
GIPS’s existing teachers received little in the deal, said Grand Island Education Association (GIEA) President Michelle Carter.
“Are some of the projects that they are doing needed? Absolutely. I know they're doing some upgrades in some of the aging buildings,” she said.
Carter teaches at Dodge Elementary, which has been allocated about $190,881 for network wiring.
“(GIEA was) frustrated that staff were not being recognized as a potential place for some of those extra dollars to go,” Carter said of the ESSER III allocations.
Some school districts, including Omaha Public Schools, offered teacher stipends as part of their ESSER III funding package.
Grand Island Public Schools faculty and staff do have additional means of earning money from the district in the form of ELO (extended learning opportunity) duties, including pieces of the district’s Long Range Plan for Extracurricular Excellence.
Robin Dexter, GIPS associate superintendent, told the GIPS board in November 2021: “I’ll be really upfront — to carry this off we don’t have the money to do (the extracurricular excellence plan). If it weren’t for ESSER III funds, we wouldn’t be able to.”
While stipends were left out of GIPS’s ESSER III equation, teaching supports were included.
“It comes back to … what do (teachers) need in order to meet the needs of students?” said Toni Palmer, chief of leading for learning at GIPS. “So, really, what do our students need? And then how do we help our teachers, make sure they have the right resources, the right training, in order to deliver that?”
Professional services take up 17% ($3 million) and instructional materials take up 18% (nearly $3.3 million) of GIPS’s share of ESSER III.
Kris Schneider, director of federal programs at GIPS, said, “One of the largest areas that we've spent our dollars is on learning loss, which is a requirement. Looking at high quality instructional materials, looking at our academic coaching for support, coaching, professional learning all of those pieces were big.”
Beyond government guidance, decisions regarding what to do with ESSER III money falls on the district itself. There is no set formula or system a school district must use to evaluate where the money should go.
Mitigating factors like supply and labor issues, triage of needs and time constraints can — and have — altered plans originally submitted to NDE.
School districts assembled proposals for spending, which were reviewed by NDE. If approved by NDE, the recommendation was forwarded to the U.S. Department of Education. If revisions were needed, NDE provided guidance to revise the application.
Jespersen said in Nebraska, it is not untypical that ESSER III funds go towards capital projects.
School districts who received ESSER III funding have until September 2024 to spend the awarded funds. According to Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, as of March 16 GIPS had spent 26.5% of its ESSER III money.