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Date: 10/5/2021
NORTHAMPTON – With the third round of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds on the way, Northampton Public Schools, Superintendent John Provost met with the district’s school councils on Sept. 27 to discuss potential uses for the money.
To start his presentation, Provost said the district is expecting over $3 million from this round of funding to be used by the end of September 2024.
“We are pretty confident our allocation is going to be $3.3 million; this is money that extends even farther, and we have all the way until September of 2024 to spend these funds,” he said.
While the district is receiving a significant amount of money, Provost said it should not be used on recurring or long-term expenses.
“This is non-recurring revenue, so it is really important that it be used for one time or short-term expenditures, it is not intended for any activities that are going to continue past Sept. 30, 2024. It is important that it is not used for staff,” he said.
Provost added that it was important not to use the money to hire staff because of experiences learned from hiring staff through the Obama administration’s Rise to the Top economic recovery program for schools.
With this round of funding, Provost said the funds are eligible for projects in three categories while 20 percent of the money must be reserved to address learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The three buckets are academics, social-emotional and operations and capital. There is a set aside in ESSERS III of at least 20 percent that must be used to address lost instruction time through the implementation of evidence-based interventions that respond to students’ social emotional and academic needs and address the disproportionate impact on under-represented student groups,” he said.
Provost explained the under-represented student groups include, “low-income students, children with disabilities, English learners, racial and ethnic minorities, students experiencing homelessness and youth in foster care.”
After going over the details of the funding, Provost opened the floor to questions and recommendations for projects to use the money on.
One way Ryan Road School Principal Sarah Madden said she hopes the funds are used is to establish a community support van for students and families across the district.
“I was really hoping we could get a van. My idea is that it would be a community support van so we do not have to worry so much about families coming to school, but we could also bring families to school. The van also would have some resources including possibly Chromebooks,” she said. “I would love to see a sort of community support on wheels become a part of the Northampton Schools.”
JFK Middle School Principal Desmond Caldwell said he wanted to see the district continue to move forward with the Anti-bias, Antiracist (ABAR) certification process.
"One of the things we talked about at JFK is moving into the next level of the ABAR work. As hard as it was scheduling and getting that knowledge out there, that was the easy part but now people know what to look for. When we know better, we must do better, so we cannot miss this opportunity, otherwise people will revert to turning a blind eye,” he said.
Jackson Street School Principal Lauren Brown said she wanted to find a way to use some of the funding to help make lunch safer for COVID-19 concerns and to prepare for the colder months ahead.
“As a principal who is expected to safely feed 350 children when it is cold outside, I am not sure how to do that so if there is a way to use this money to help lunch be safer, that feels urgent,” she said.
Stakeholders can also participate in an online survey to share their thoughts about uses for the funding at https://but.ly/esserpoll.