Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 9/21/2021
EASTHAMPTON – Easthampton Public Schools are asking the public for input on the development of spending plans with Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief III (ESSER) funds to address targeted needs within the district.
Between 2020 and 2021, U.S. Congress has passed three stimulus bills that have provided $190.5 billion in ESSER funds for states around the country. The American Rescue Plan was passed on March 11 as the third stimulus bill, which continues to provide states with funding to support the country’s schools in “safely reopening and sustaining safe operations while meeting the academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs of students resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
School districts all over the country are required to consult with the public to develop plans for prioritizing and spending these specific funds. According to Julie Anne Levin, the director of curriculum/grants at Easthampton Public Schools, the ESSER III allocation for Easthampton is $1.6 million. In total, Easthampton has been allocated $2.6 million between all state and federal school grants for fiscal year 2022, according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website (DESE).
“Easthampton participated in rounds I and II ESSER funding to support activities last year and this year,” said Levin. That funding went toward increasing staff – both in educator roles and health services roles-providing technology and curriculum support for remote and hybrid learning, purchasing supplies like masks and sanitizing products, translating COVID-19-related communications for families with limited English proficiency, and supporting transportation and staffing for the district’s 2021 summer school program.
This specific survey will ask the public four questions, including what stakeholder group they represent, which resources would be most helpful in addressing the negative impacts of COVID-19 on students’ academic and social emotional well-being in the Easthampton district, as well as a couple of other COVID-19-related questions.
“We will gather the information collected from the survey, report it back out to the community, then include those results in the ESSER III grant application as support for how the district plans to use the funding,” said Levin, when speaking on the next steps after the survey results are in.
“The increase in educational staffing – special education teachers, English learner teachers, paraeducators, and the increase in health services staffing, registered nurses at every grade-span, support our in-person learning model this year,” she added.
The district used prior funds to increase lunch monitors, substitute funding and other family engagement staffing. Grant money was used to acquire tents, flexible seating options, and other supports for lunch and outdoor activities. “All these expenditures are in service of providing a safe in-person learning model for staff and students, which we have found to be the most educationally sound model of pandemic learning,” Levin added.
ESSER funding must be fully expended by Sep. 30, 2024. According to the DESE website, districts must reserve at least 20 percent of its ESSER III funds to address lost instructional time through the implementation of evidence-based interventions that support students’ academic, social and emotional needs. People have until Oct. 1 to fill out the survey, which can be found at http://ow.ly/L2v650G8Rh1 or on the Easthampton Public Schools Facebook page.