As Cole County school districts apply for the most recent COVID-19 relief funds, each district plans to use the money in different ways.
On June 17, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education submitted the application to the U.S. Department of Education required to receive Missouri's allocation for the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund, often referred to by DESE as ESSER III.
Missouri received about $208 million in ESSER I money under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and $871 million in ESSER II money under the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act. School districts and charter schools were allocated 90 percent of each of those amounts.
For ESSER III, Missouri will receive $1.96 billion, 90 percent of which will be distributed to school districts and charter schools to spend on a wide range of allowable uses to address the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
DESE will use the remaining 10 percent for state-level projects and initiatives to accelerate student learning, address the digital divide and invest in the teacher workforce.
The amount of ESSER money school districts receive is proportional to the amount of Title I money they receive. Title I provides financial assistance to schools with high numbers of children from low-income families.
For Cole County schools, total preliminary ESSER III allocations show the Jefferson City School District will receive $14,574,503, the Blair Oaks R-2 School District in Wardsville will receive $215,236, the Cole County R-1 School District in Russellville will receive $783,354, and the Cole County R-5 School District in Eugene will receive $895,032.
This is the preliminary amount of money available to school districts once the state Legislature has appropriated the funds, and the districts and state have approved applications.
The timeline for when DESE and school districts can have access to the money has yet to be determined. The deadline for districts to apply to receive ESSER III money is Aug. 23.
In total ESSER I, II and III funds, JC Schools' allocation is about $22,616,989; Blair Oaks' is about $349,500; Russellville's is about $1,286,100; and Eugene's is about $1,389,900.
Jefferson City School District
JC Schools plans to spread out the ESSER III money over the next three fiscal years. The budget for the 2021-22 school year has almost $6.6 million in ESSER III money, which makes up 35 percent of the district's federal funds, said Jason Hoffman, former JC Schools chief financial officer, who retired June 30.
The district is still determining specific uses for the ESSER III money. It will allocate 20 percent of the funding for expenditures related to learning loss, said Shari LePage, current JC Schools chief financial officer.
"We are looking at how to leverage that to ensure we are supporting our students and staff in the best possible way," LePage said.
The district used ESSER I and ESSER II funds for secondary teacher salaries, "which allowed readily available funds to be used in real-time as other COVID-19-related expenses occurred, such as virtual tuition, additional transportation, thermal cameras and contact tracers," LePage said.
Blair Oaks R-2, Wardsville
Blair Oaks is using a significant amount of ESSER I, II and III money to pay for virtual education, which cost about $100,000 during the 2020-21 school year. The district is also considering purchasing new technology for in-person and virtual learning, Superintendent Jim Jones said.
Not all of the money will necessarily be used in this fiscal year.
"I don't know if we necessarily anticipate all the needs that we're going to have moving forward," Jones said.
Blair Oaks is receiving significantly less in COVID-19 relief funds than most other Missouri districts.
"We're going to do our best to stretch that as far as we can and use it as efficiently as we can to meet the needs of our students and teachers moving forward," Jones said.
Cole County R-1, Russellville
The Cole County R-1 School District used some of the ESSER money to hire two staff members to provide remediation to students who have fallen behind, Superintendent Perry Gorrell said.
"We believe that our district will grow enough over the next few years that we would've needed those staff members anyway," Gorrell said.
The district is doing a facility audit over the next four to five months, which will help district leaders determine other uses for ESSER III money. Since the district has grown, they may need to add additional rooms to keep class sizes small, Gorrell said.
"To do that, we need to know where the best place is and how to go about doing that," he said. "Do we utilize the stuff that we currently have that may need to be retrofitted, or do we add this new space? That's what the facility audit is going to help us determine."
The district used ESSER I and II money to hire extra staff, help offset its budget and purchase COVID-19-related items such as sanitation equipment.
Cole County R-5, Eugene
Cole County R-5 School District Superintendent Charley Burch said the district does not yet have a definite plan for how to use the ESSER III money.
"I will be putting together a committee in the coming weeks to assess the needs of the district and where the funds should be most appropriately spent," Burch said.
The district used the ESSER I money for items like hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies, and the ESSER II money to update parts of roofs that were damaged.