SOUTH MADISON COUNTY — For the third time during the coronavirus pandemic, schools are receiving federal funding to help pay for COVID-19-related expenses.
The third installment is the largest to date.
Through the American Rescue Plan (ARP), signed into law March 11, two area public school districts are expected to receive nearly $4.8 million to help with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The other grants were from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and CARES Act 2.0.
According to figures released by Indiana Department of Education, South Madison Community School Corp. is expected to receive $2,651,477, while the sum for Frankton-Lapel Communty Schools is $2,131,043.
Nationally, of the $1.9 trillion ARP Act (also known as the COVID-19 Stimulus Package), $122 billion went to elementary and secondary school emergency relief.
With the latest aid, Indiana, according to IDOE, received an estimated $1.8 billion for public schools and an additional $78 million for non-public schools.
In the initial funding allocated in April 2020, Frankton-Lapel received $262,299 and an additional $906,177 from CARES Act 2.0. South Madison received $291,171 from the first package and $1,137,640 from 2.0.
“To put it in perspective, our total budget for the year in the education fund is about $20 million. We’re getting $2.1 million in this (third payment), so it’s over 10% of our total education budget,” Frankton-Lapel Schools Superintendent Bobby Fields said. “It’s a lot of money.”
“We got the first one, which was around $250,000, we thought, ‘Wow! That’s amazing,’” Fields added. “We didn’t even know the second one was coming out and we got (over $900,000).”
Fields said much of the money from the early rounds will be used for remediation from learning loss from students being out of school last March and parts of this year.
He said the district will offer some activities after school and in the summer to help with students needing to catch up.
Some money will go to schools’ HVAC systems to try to help with cleaner air, in hopes of lessening the chance of passing a virus around.
Fields added school leaders expect to hire a data specialist for each building to keep track of students’ scores to have better knowledge of where children may have learning loss.
Schools can use the latest funding “to reimburse approved expenses incurred through September 2024 that address some of the greatest challenges schools continue to face as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” IDOE stated in a release sent out last month.
Fields said some of the funding was to be set aside for reopening of schools, which has been an issue in other parts of the country. That hasn’t been the case for Frankton-Lapel schools, and others in Indiana, which have been able to stay open much of the school year.
Fields praised his staff for being able to keep things running as normally as possible.
“Our teachers, bus drivers, all of our staff have done a fantastic job in keeping our school open and running,” he said.
South Madison Community Schools Corp. Superintendent Mark Hall said the district is still tabulating costs incurred from running virtual schooling, extra duties people have had to do because of the pandemic, cleaning supplies and other pandemic-related expenses, along with predicting costs they will have over the next three years.
“I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding of that, that we already have that money,” Hall said. “The way it works is we have to file an application for that money. And then we’re reimbursed for any expenditures we have. Essentially what that means is that we’ve been allotted to spend up to that $2.6 million.
“We’ve also received money from the first two (plans). There are stipulations on a certain percentage that has to be spent on remediation for students and then we can also spend that on, really anything related to expenditures that we’ve incurred due to COVID issues.”
Hall added that every bit of it will help alleviate some of the pressure felt over how to pay for all of the significant changes school leaders have had to make, and will continue to make, to best educate students.
“We’ve tried to offer in-person (education) for all the kids that want to have in-person (education) and also try to offer a quality virtual program for all those students that want the virtual program,” Hall said. “When you’re running dual programs like that it is, obviously, expensive, but we thought it was the right thing to do, to give our parents choices.”
Hall said the plan is to offer those options in 2021-22. District leaders are trying to forecast what they will need as far as virtual teachers and other needs to offer all students their best options for education.
“(The federal funding) kind of alleviates that one question mark of ‘Are we going to have the money to pay for this?’”