As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, school districts across the country are dealing with its impact. Thanks to federal funds, something positive is being felt by those schools.
Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board members of the board were given an update during the Tuesday, Sept. 7, meeting on a recent community survey pertaining to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund, which is part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
ESSER provides a total of nearly $122 billion to states and school districts to help safely reopen and sustain the safe operation of schools and address the impact of the pandemic on the nation’s students.
SOCSD’s allocation is $1,132,594.
“We were very excited to see the number of surveys that came in from our teachers, parents and community members,” SOCSD Superintendent Dennis Dearden said the day after the meeting. “The results were very consistent as to how our leadership team viewed the importance of each of the categories in the survey. This is a significant amount of money that we must spend wisely to cover the many needs that we have due to COVID-19.”
The survey focused on six areas of potential spending and whether or not those taking it felt these areas were very important, important, somewhat important or not important.
Within each question, respondents were asked to rank specifically what they would like the funds used for.
One question asked, “How important is it to invest in support services,” which helps increase and enrich learning. Just under 91% stated it was very important or important.
As to how the funds should be spent, school counselors ranked first followed by training for teachers, social emotional learning curriculum, building relationships and student connectedness.
“We wanted to provide our stakeholders/ community the opportunity to provide input and take such input into account in the development of our plan for our ESSER III allocation,” Director of Finances Stacy Saravo said after the meeting. “We felt that the community input and areas of importance were aligned with leadership discussions.”
Saravo said a minimum of 20%, or $226,518, of the federal funding will be set aside to address learning loss due to the impact of COVID-19.
The remaining 80% of spending will be evaluated and planned for by the district’s leadership team for the most meaningful and sustainable investments to the district based on need and stakeholder input. This will be on the district’s website once the plan has been solidified.
