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How will Connecticut schools spend $1 billion in coronavirus relief funds? Fixing buildings, hiring educators and expanding mental health support top the list.

Hartford Courant - 7/23/2021

With more than $1 billion federal coronavirus relief dollars going to Connecticut’s K-12 schools, some districts finally have the funds to fix older buildings, hire more educators and expand mental health supports — as well as an opportunity to prove to governing bodies that such initiatives are worth continuing to finance, even after the relief money is gone.

Patrice McCarthy, deputy director and general counsel of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, called the relief funds a “historic investment” in the education system and listed several “major areas” local boards across the state are focused on: learning gaps and disengagement, mental health, summer enrichment and facilities improvements.

Among other initiatives, the state plans to use its portion of the money for grants to support summer learning programs, extensions of two contracts with online learning providers and the creation of a statewide model curriculum.

The American Rescue Plan, or ARP, allocates about $1.1 billion toward K-12 education in the state. Connecticut can withhold up to 10% of the total funding amount, or about $110 million, for state-level efforts through the Department of Education. School districts are expected to see 90% of the total funds, or about $995 million. Through two previous distributions of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds, the state received a total of about $603.5 million.

The amount of money each district receives in federal aid is based on its Title I allocations. Title I gives financial assistance to local education systems for children from low-income families, so schools with a high number of students experiencing poverty tend to receive more Title I funding. According to state documents, Bridgeport was allocated the most education money through ARP, about $100.2 million. Andover, Canaan, Colebrook, Eastford and Union did not receive education-specific funds through the plan, but the state set aside about $5 million from its own allocation to help those schools cover pandemic-related costs.

All districts must set aside 20% of their total ARP education funding to address learning loss, according to federal law. They must also publish online a plan for a safe return to in-person instruction and continuity of academic and mental and physical health support services. While developing their plans, they are also required to engage with families, educators, staff and civil rights organizations, as well as those representing the interests of at-risk or high-needs children, where such students are present.

School districts’ budgets for ARP education funds are due to the state in mid-August, and funds must be spent by the end of September 2024.

Building repairs and HVAC upgrades

In New Britain, much of the district’s $50 million in ARP education funds is planned to go toward building repairs and HVAC system upgrades, as well as hiring additional teachers and staff, said Superintendent of Schools Nancy Sarra. Like the districts’ previous two rounds of federal funding, which totaled about $28 million, some aid will also go toward continued academic, tech and mental health supports for families and staff.

Because many school buildings were built between 50 and 70 years ago, Kevin Dion, the district’s director of facilities, said they weren’t designed to address climate change and the growing need for air conditioning. But before they can begin updating air quality systems, or other multiyear projects, they need to investigate and plan for the presence of asbestos.

“Most districts are going to have these challenges,” said Dion. “You only have so many tradespeople, so many companies that do this. So, we will be pressed, and I want to make sure we get good quality and there isn’t an inflation in pricing because there’s an increased demand.”

Sarra expressed similar shortage concerns about hiring more educators, especially for students who are learning English or who have special needs. The superintendent is hiring more than 70 teaching assistants alone, about 30 of whom need to be bilingual.

“We’re all fighting over similar people,” she said, discussing salary incentives the district is offering to attract talent. Still, Sarra described the aid money as having a “double-edge,” “because we don’t want these positions to go away two years from now.”

“I think we even question, ‘Is it fair to hire this many people with a two- to three-year lifespan?’ ” she said. “I have to say yes it is right now, because I have faith that the state is going to see successes and recognize there needs to be some shift in spending — at the local level and the state level, and the federal levels as well.”

Currently, the state has access to two-thirds, or about $700 million, of the $1.1 billion total ARP education funds. In order to access the remaining one-third, the federal government has to approve the state’s spending plan, which officials submitted in June. The state Department of Education said Wednesday the state’s plan is still awaiting federal approval, although they expect it to happen “relatively soon.”

Federal funds could bring more state, local support

While some schools have wanted to hire additional educators, expand technology access, improve old buildings or increase social and emotional supports for years, they did not necessarily have the evidence needed to convince local or state governing bodies that investing in those efforts would produce tangible improvements in student outcomes, explained McCarthy, the deputy director and general counsel of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. But the influx of federal money could provide a valuable opportunity to record such data, particularly regarding mental health supports, she said.

“If that yields the results that we think it will yield, then you have a much better chance of securing the funding going forward because you can show the actual results,” McCarthy said.

This summer, as schools put millions in federal relief aid into expanding full-day learning programs and partnering with community organizations, many districts are “meeting the needs of more students than they ever have before,” especially in urban communities, said Fran Rabinowitz, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents.

“We are trying right now to capture the benefits so that when people ask, ‘What did you do with the dollars?’ we have some data to show what happened this summer,” she said, adding that this school coming school year, “We don’t want to go back to just normal. We want to enhance it with what we’ve learned, and we want to build the capacity of staff. ... Tremendous amounts of professional development [are] being planned in early literacy, in equity, in what teaching and learning really needs to look like in the classroom.”

AFT Connecticut leaders agreed that additional educator and staff training is “essential,” especially as “we need to understand how to respond to trauma and what to pass along to service providers like school psychologists and social workers,” said Norwalk teacher Mary Yordon, union vice president for teachers in grades pre-K through 12.

But in order for development programs to be successful, AFT President Jan Hochadel and Shellye Davis, vice president for paraprofessionals and school-related personnel, said districts need to take into account that educators at varying points in their careers have different training needs, as well as school staff members in other roles.

With school districts looking to hire more educators, Hochadel said current teachers would “love smaller class sizes.”

However, she said: “Our concern is, we’re seeing some plans where the idea is, ‘We’ll hire two or three reading teachers for each grade,’ but there’s no long-term strategy. … We would like to see comprehensive, long-term plans for helping these students, instead of just Band-Aids.”

The union leaders also said they want want some federal aid funding to go toward health and safety measures upon reopening, as well as vaccination efforts. But to some extent, schools are still waiting for the state guidance regarding mask-wearing and social distancing in classrooms to be published before releasing their own official guidelines, Yordon said. The state education and health departments are expected to release the guidance over the next few weeks.

Amanda Blanco can be reached at ablanco@courant.com.

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