On March 11, 2021 President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law. Included in this plan was $123 billion to be used for school districts to safely reopen schools. The K-12 public school version of this funding has been referred to as the Elementary and Secondary School Relief Fund or ESSER III, (following of course ESSER I and II which were signed into law during the Trump administration). For the Hudson Community School District, the appropriation is $419,085. Of that, the law requires we reserve 20% or $83,817 to address learning loss as a result of the pandemic.
Since the onset of the pandemic, our district has received over $660,000 in federal stimulus funds. For the most part, these funds can be used for a broad range of purposes, provided of course there is a connection to the pandemic or activities that can be used to mitigate a future pandemic. The guidance states in part that; the funds are authorized to "...sustain the safe operation of schools, and address the impact of the coronavirus on students."
As of yet, our focus on the allocation of these funds have been used for such things as PPE and the purchase of equipment that was used for disinfecting our buildings and instructional spaces. We also made the decision to hire an additional first shift custodian to help with cleaning and disinfecting during the day. For the immediate future, we'll continue to employ the position through this funding stream. During the last school year, we also made an additional investment in our online learning platforms, using an online curriculum known as Pathways for the elementary, and expanding the use of a platform that had traditionally been used for credit recovery for grades 7-12. Since we won't be providing a voluntary virtual option this year, we will discontinue the Pathways platform and scale back the 7-12 program to its pre-pandemic application. We also have a dedicated fund to help us provide internet connectivity to those families who need assistance. In our case, we have an inventory of devices that are assigned as needed. I'll also point out that we still have plenty of capacity in this fund to meet additional needs. If we can help in any way, please reach out to Mr. Bell. Finally, the first four weeks of June included a summer school program that was designed with the specific intent of addressing learning loss and was open to students in grades 1-11.
Obviously the examples mentioned above do not represent an exhaustive or comprehensive accounting of our utilization of these resources. We have been deliberate in our approach and worked hard to ensure that the funds are spent wisely and in a manner that provides maximum benefit to our school district. Luckily we don't need to be in a hurry to make these investments since the latest guidance seems to suggest we have until September of 2024 to take advantage of these resources. Yet one substantial and costly project that rises to the surface for us is the ventilation and HVAC system in the high school. Lucky for us, that is exactly the type of project that would be permitted under the legislation:
"Inspection, testing, maintenance, repair, replacement, and upgrade projects to improve the indoor air quality in school facilities, including mechanical and non-mechanical heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, filtering, purification and other air cleaning, fans, control systems, and window and door repair and replacement."
But before we move forward with this or any other large scale project we would like you to have an opportunity to provide some input and feedback into how some of these funds are used. Next week the board will meet to do several things that are designed to set the stage for our new school year and provide an opportunity for you to weigh in on our investment strategy. As a start, the board will be updating our Return to Learn plan. Part of that update will include a very brief, two question survey on our plans for these resources.
Be on the lookout for this communication next week.
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