Brown County Schools has received nearly $1.5 million in COVID-19 relief funding, with another possible $2.5 million on the way.
At the May 6 school board meeting, Superintendent Laura Hammack outlined how the money has been spent so far and plans for the remaining dollars.
She said that the ultimate reason for the money is to ensure that students are in school.
The district received $355,597.13 through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. As of May 6, the district had $45,624.55 of that left.
Students in Brown County have been able to attend school in person since Aug. 3, though some schools have gone remote for on a hybrid plan for short periods due to a high number of COVID-19 cases in the building. There is also a remote learning options for families who do not wish to send their students in person due to COVID-19 concerns.
Hammack said this past school year has been challenging.
"With that comes a whole bunch of needs that requires resources to be able to run the school in a way that is safe and allows for students and staff to be able to navigate the school community in a way that provides a sense of security and wellbeing," she said.
The amount of money each district receives is based on levels of poverty, or a district’s Title I status.
Hammack said the first allocation of CARES Act funding, or what is known now as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund 1, allowed the school district to operate in person this school year.
ESSER 1 funds were used to purchase personal protective equipment, like masks and hand sanitizer, and to reconfigure spaces to create more distance between students. As of May 6, the district had spent more than $186,000 on PPE and supplies out of a budget of $200,000.
The district also was able to use ESSER 1 funds for additional legal support this school year. The district had budgeted $38,869.31 on legal services out of the first round of funding and had $4,447.31 remaining as of May 6.
"There were so many positions that we had no idea how to navigate from a legal perspective, so we had had to engage with legal more than we ever had before this last year," Hammack explained.
The money also helped to give health assistants extra stipends for working longer days during the week and on the weekends, making phone calls to families to let them know if they had been identified as a "close contact" of someone who tested positive.
As of May 6 the district had spent more than $14,500 on stipends to those employees.
There was also $50,000 budgeted out of ESSER 1 to pay for wireless internet and hotspots for families in the district on remote learning.
Hammack said the first round of funding "quite frankly has served us very well this last school year and we’re very grateful for it."
"I think we were very ‘Hoosier’ in our expenditures of these resources because we did not want to just go out and spend, because we worried about the long game and we knew this was going to be a long game," she said.
Planning ahead
ESSER 2 funding brought in an additional $1,141,192.95 to the school district. Those dollars were to be allocated in a budget by May 15.
ESSER 2 is a reimbursable grant, meaning the district submits receipts and then gets reimbursed for those expenses. That means the district had to create a budget of expected allocations and then those expenditures have to be approved.
"These are amendable. If the district finds that something that we have framed out didn’t end up costing us much, it might have cost more, as these things kind of evolved, then you can go back with approval (and) edit your submission," Hammack explained.
With this round of funding, the district was able to look at the next two school years when deciding how to spend the money. ESSER 2 money must be spent by September 2024.
For this round of funding, the district was directed by the Indiana Department of Education and the federal government to use the money to address learning and to "engage students who are in underrepresented populations to be able to thrive educationally," Hammack said.
Even though local schools have been in session since August, district administrators still expect students to have learning loss and emotional needs.
"We do have real concerns about social-emotional wellness of our young people because they are not necessarily able to engage in a healthy way as they might have prior to the pandemic," Hammack said.
To help address that, the school district has engaged with Happy Hollow Camp to have an overnight, weeklong summer camp for students this July. They’ll get to play in the dirt and learn about the environment outdoors.
"Too much screen time has really been a concern for our school district and this is the antidote to that, which is to get kids out in the dirt and in the hot in July at summer camp," Hammack said.
That projected expense was set at $40,000, along with an additional $10,000 to pay for teacher support at the camp.
To continue addressing students’ social-emotional learning, ESSER 2 will fund a social worker at Brown County High School for two years for a total of $180,000.
Summer school for 2022 will also be funded with ESSER 2 at $50,000. The district also plans to pay for curricula to address learning loss over the next two school years for a total cost of $105,750.
The district will also pay for assessment tools for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. For two years, that will cost $116,967.95.
A learning agreement with Edmentum to continue with Plato online classes for secondary students will also be covered under ESSER 2 at a price tag of $58,475.
The district’s director of career connected learning will also be funded by ESSER 2 for two years at $150,000 each year, including salary and benefits.
The district also set aside another $50,000 out of ESSER 2 to cover PPE costs each school year, for a total of $100,000.
"We don’t expect we will done with PPE for a year or two, so this allocation is there to help us with supplies to be able to get through the next couple of years," Hammack said.
Rounding out the rest of ESSER 2 funding are an additional $100,000 for legal services and $50,000 to pay for the district’s Social-Emotional Learning Coach, Sandy Washburn, next school year.
At the May 6 meeting, the school board also approved Jim Hailk as the interim superintendent from June to August when Hammack’s replacement is hired. She has taken a job with Beech Grove schools. Halik’s time with the district will also be covered under ESSER 2 for $30,000.
The district is in the "planning allocation phase" of the ESSER 3 distribution. The district had not received its final dollar amount for that round of funding, but was given a figure of $2.5 million to help plan. A budget has not been framed out for that round of funding yet.
In 2019, the school district received a five-year, $5.5 million federal grant from the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching. With that money, the district has designated a few teachers in each building as “master” and “mentor” teachers to help other teachers learn different methods of reaching students. That money also funds teacher training, evaluations, and a performance-based compensation plan.
One possible use for ESSER 3 funding is to extend that program for another two years after the current grant expires, Hammack said.
"Recognizing that as things change we will be responsive to it, but ESSER 3 is a substantial amount of resources and I am excited about how those resources can add value ongoing to our school district," she said.
