CARES Act dollars help district add additional resources
With students learning remotely for a portion of the school year, then using one of many learning platforms last year, the School District of Lee County put its CARES Act dollars to use by adding additional resources to help with learning loss.
Grants and Program Development Director Teri Cannady shared a detailed timeline of funds the district received under CARES Act K-12 during a briefing meeting Monday afternoon. She explained that when they received ESSER I funds it was more than $21 million with only a few weeks to determine a plan, with the allocation providing a two-year cycle.
Cannady said that ESSER I was pretty much geared towards learning gaps, as all the assurances were tied to that. The seven allocations included high quality curriculum for reading; GEERS (Governors Education Emergency Relief); ESSER I, Coronavirus Prevention & Response; civics literacy; data informed supports application and instructional continuity plan.
In December 2020, ESSER II became another allocation the district would receive in the amount of $84,144,214.
“In July DOE notified us that they we were going to do a budget narrative and break the $84 million into four allocations. Four different grants that are specific, each have requirements for them,” Cannady said. “When ESSER II came about we only had a few weeks and that is when we said, OK we need to gather and create our teams. We brought every division together to say here is the funding, here are the assurances and what are we going to do with this money.”
The four proposed Florida Department of Education allocations tied to these funds include non-enrollment assistance; ($3,365,769) academic assistance ($16,828,843); technology assistance ($4,207,211) and lump sum ($59,742,391).
Cannady also shared information about the American Relief Plan, ESSER III, which amounts $174,189,163. She said with this one requiring public input, they are in the process of working with the communication department to create a survey and developing a website to show how the allocations are going to be used.
“We do not have direction of when funds will come. We have assurances from USDOE on how money can be spent. Again FLDOE has additional requirements,” Cannady said.
An overview of classroom success, utilizing these funds, was shared with the board Monday afternoon.
Teaching and Learning Director Candace Allevato provided an update regarding Back on Track, a high school credit recovery program. She said it provides flexibility for students who are losing credit for one reason or another. The district uses Edgenuity, which schools have the ability to utilize in any manner that works best for them.
This program offers Monday through Saturday services for any ninth through 12th grade student in need of credit retrieval. Allevato said one of the high schools offers Saturday, while another does Zoom late hours from 8 to 9:30 p.m. for those athletes, or working students that need additional help.
“Our students have recovered 528 courses,” Allevato said, which is important because of graduation requirements. “We are excited to be able to continue utilizing ESSER dollars.”
ESSER funds also help with SAT and ACT resources and assessments for 11th and 12th grade students that have not had the opportunity to meet their graduation requirements in English language arts. They purchased ACT and SAT resources, so those tools are directly in front of the students providing test taking strategies, as well as taking the SAT for nonreportable scores.
“All of our 11th graders were provided with SAT reportable (scores) to colleges. It helps mitigate some of the learning loss as well,” Allevato said.
ESSER funds also helped in starting Connect with LEE, live educational expert support through Zoom, which is provided to every student through daytime and evening hours. As of Sept. 24, 2,880 students and families have been served collectively.
Teaching and Learning Director Dr. Bethany Quisenberry said they were blessed last year with a reading grant that helped in implementing a primary literacy coach in every elementary school. She said although there are six grade levels at an elementary school, there are only three tested grades.
“Primary is our spot where we had the largest learning loss,” Quisenberry said.
Due to this, the district was able to, through ESSER funding, advertise and hire primary coaches for math, English Language Arts and science.
ESSER funding also enabled the district to purchase iReady for English Language Arts and Math. Quisenberry said all elementary and middle schools are now using iReady.
She said the program is used as a resource for progress monitoring, as well as a tool for teachers to create individualized learning path. The program also provides a toolbox for teachers as it provides small group differentiated lesson plans, growth monitoring and mastery assessments.
Increased student learning time is another topic that has begun discussion again. Chief Academic Officer Dr. Jeff Spiro said the increased learning time has to be bargained and brought to the table with both TALC and SPALC. The two topics up for discussion are an extra 30 minutes across the board for staff and students for the school day, as well as moving to a seven period day instead of block scheduling.
“We are embarking on this funding because we have the opportunity through a particular grant to support increased student learning time. There is a process this has to go through. If this works, then we would look at increased staff and student learning time,” Spiro said by reallocating funds to support something timely inside the organization. “It is very early.”
The presentation was further broken down into sections of support, school development, student services and curriculum and instruction.