The draft of a plan for how Brown County Schools will use more than $2.5 million in COVID-19 relief funding was presented to the school board last month.
The school district received its ESSER 3 funding of $2,562,957.25. This is the third round of relief funding the district has received.
At the June 24 school board meeting, Deborah Harman, director of student learning and services, presented the draft plan that included five areas ESSER 3 funding will be spent on, including addressing learning loss and improving air quality in school buildings.
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.
ESSER 2 funding brought in an additional $1,141,192.95. Those dollars were allocated in a budget in May. For that 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,” school officials said.
A portion of ESSER 2 money was used pay for Happy Hollow Camp to host an overnight, weeklong summer camp for students this month. That projected expense was $40,000, along with an additional $10,000 to pay for teacher support at the camp.
Other expenses included funding a social worker at Brown County High School for two years for a total of $180,000 to continue addressing social-emotional learning.
ESSER 2 also will be used to pay for summer school next year at $50,000. The district also planned to pay for curricula to address learning loss over the next two school years for a total cost of $105,750.
The district will 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’s salary and benefits will also be funded by ESSER 2 for two years at $150,000 each year.
The district also set aside another $50,000 out of ESSER 2 to cover personal protective equipment costs each school year, for a total of $100,000.
Rounding out the rest of ESSER 2 funding was 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.
Focus areas
There were about 10 categories the school district could spend the money on, but after meeting with principals and the district’s teacher discussion group, it was decided to focus on improving air quality, activities to reduce virus transmission, continuity of service by extending employment of existing support staff, and purchasing educational technology.
The draft plan did not include total amounts expected to be spent under each area. But the first focus area is setting aside 20 percent to address learning loss, which was a requirement of the federal funding for all school districts. It will be spent on assessments or equipment, Harman explained.
Purchasing an 88,000 audiobook library that can be read out loud if needed is one way that portion of ESSER 3 could be spent.
When students return to school next month, it will be the first time some students have been in the classroom since March 2020. Many families opted for a 100-percent-remote learning option last year due to concerns about the transmission of COVID-19 in buildings.
Under the air quality focus area, the roof at Brown County Middle School will be replaced and other HVAC needs in the district might be addressed, but school officials were still checking to see if HVAC would be an allowable expense. “Because of the dampness, when you have water leaking and chances for mold to develop, it ends up influencing air quality,” Harman said.
The first two rounds of relief funding funded projects to reduce virus transmission, like creating more space in classrooms and other offices in school buildings. But Harman said there are still some areas where team members sit near each other in office areas and that could be addressed with ESSER 3.
“We want to try to do a little bit of construction to make sure if we have another situation where people are recommended to be six feet apart and all of that, we can easily implement that,” she said.
For continuity of service, Harman said that will mean keeping employees in the district who were hired as a result of COVID who can help deliver services to students as a way to address learning loss.
For educational technology, Harman said the district is considering purchasing PA systems to lift teacher voices in each building, except for Helmsburg Elementary School where there is already a PA system.
“If teachers are masked, they would not have to be shouting and that they would be able to be heard much easier,” Harman said.
“Helmsburg already has this new version of PA and the teachers wear a lavaliere mic, so in that case, if there is a hearing impaired student, it connects directly to the device. It makes the voice louder for everyone.”
Board member Amy Oliver said she used a voice lifter when she worked as a teacher in Bartholomew County and that it was “wonderful” to use, especially in a classroom of 45 students.
“It really is a health and safety issue for teachers. They really do lose their voices, strain their vocal cords by talking all day,” Oliver said.
“Everybody in the room would comment how much it was helpful to everyone, helpful to the teacher and helpful to the kids, so I love the fact that you’re using that money to try to bring us technologically to that next level because I think that is, again, kind of becoming the standard.”
Being able to enhance the learning and work environment for students and staff for many years to come by using relief funding is the “silver lining” to COVID, Harman said.
