FEDERAL
FUNDING
A In March, 2021, the federal government passed the American Rescue Plan, which includes significant funding for K-12 schools. The majority of these dollars will flow directly to districts based on their numbers of eligible Title I students.
These funds can be used for many different expenses, but the administration has made clear these dollars should prioritize reopening school buildings for in-person learning and addressing learning losses resulting from the effects of the pandemic.
These funds are one-time funds that must be used September 30, 2024.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR NEVADA?
Nevada will received approximately $1 billion to serve its students. Though this is a relatively large amount of funding, the need is great, too.
HOW IT IS BEING APPLIED.
Funding has been used for protective equipment, tutoring programs, bonuses for teachers and other staff, buy necessary equipment and other needs. One major concern is that Nevada has a history of using new K-12 revenue streams to supplant funding elsewhere in the state budget. As such, there is a danger that the state will reduce its already insufficient funding to schools in light of the $1 billion flowing to districts. This would mean student and school needs would be shortchanged.
RESOURCES FOR SAFE AND SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL OPENING.
The majority of schools in Nevada are finally open full-time, with in-person learning. Support to safely and successfully reopen schools was a key reason behind the infusion of federal dollars.
As President Biden stated: ”You have the vaccines, you have guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about how to reopen safely, and now you have the money. Get moving and reopen schools for in-person learning.”
Schools should have every resource necessary to support student needs and to implement mitigation efforts to keep everyone in the school building safe. These funds should not be used for ongoing operational costs or to fill budget holes which is the responsibility of the state.
EQUITY FOR STUDENTS MOST IN NEED.
Federal funds flow based on Title I eligibility and naturally should support students most in need.
Students of color have suffered the greatest learning loss during this pandemic, further widening the devastating achievement gap. A McKinsey report from late last year found that students of color had lost about three months’ worth of learning in math, twice as much as white students had lost. Students of color had lost a month and a half of reading. One Yale study estimated that the lack of in-person learning would deprive low-income ninth-graders of up to one-fourth of their lifetime earnings.
At the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, thousands of Nevada students were unaccounted for, and after several efforts to track them, hundreds were still unaccounted for. A large percentage of these students were minority or low-income students.
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/as-remote-learning-continues-so-do-efforts-to-find-inactive-students-and-bridge-the-digital-divide
Even when accounted for, few had access to the Internet. A statewide study found that roughly 30,000 students did not have internet access in their homes.
https://patch.com/nevada/across-nv/closing-nv-schools-digital-divide-means-better-internet-access
Nonprofit Bellwether Education Partners estimates that 3 million, mostly low-income family students, dropped out of school or failed to engage in remote learning at all. (info from New York Magazine, (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/biden-veers-right-on-school-reopenings.html)
These outcomes come as no surprise given that students of color are more likely to find themselves in remote learning situations. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 68% of Asian, 58% of Black and 56% of Hispanic fourth graders were learning entirely remotely, while just 27% of White students were. Conversely, nearly half of white fourth-graders were learning full-time in person, compared with just 15% of Asian, 28% of Black and 33% of Hispanic fourth-graders.
WHAT NEXT?.
Our schools have been making great use of the federal funds adding new programs, using it to retain staff, providing social emotional learning opportunities and tutoring but those funds must be used or encumbered by 2024 and unless the state is able to raise the equivalent amount of funding then schools will face a fiscal cliff and students will lose the many resources provided to them.