HANCOCK COUNTY — More than $2.5 million is anticipated for county schools from a second round of federal stimulus funds in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The funding is designed to tackle learning loss and achieve operational efficiencies amid the pandemic and comes from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act. Schools will be able to submit allowable expenses incurred from March 13, 2020, through Sept. 20, 2023, and be eligible for reimbursement.
The planning allocations are preliminary and will be finalized in the coming months, according to a news release from the Indiana Department of Education. Allocations are based on funding districts receive this school year from Title I A, which provides financial assistance to schools for students from low-income families.
Greenfield-Central is expected to get almost $1.15 million from the new round of federal stimulus funding. The district got more than $300,000 during the first round in spring 2020. Harold Olin, superintendent of the school corporation, said much of the first allocation was put toward cleaning and curricular needs. The latest allocation will be used for some of those same expenses, he added, especially cleaning.
“We’ll continue to prioritize that to make sure schools are as clean as they can be to help fight against the virus,” Olin said.
Funding will also be used for combating learning loss resulting from less time in classrooms for almost a year now, including by extending school days and the school year along with additional instructional materials, he continued.
Olin added some funds might go to continuing virtual learning, which about 600 Greenfield-Central students chose to do this school year and which the district hired teachers for. He said the district plans to continue offering the option.
“I think the virtual world does work for some families, and we certainly want to keep them in the fold with Greenfield-Central,” Olin said.
Mt. Vernon is getting almost $603,000 in federal stimulus funding. The corporation plans to use it to address learning loss that’s occurred due to the pandemic, said Maria Bond, director of community relations.
“Our team is discussing a variety of the most impactful methods to effectively improve student growth,” Bond told the Daily Reporter in an email. “We are still in the beginning stages of this discussion and are continuing to gather data on the areas of the learning loss to know where to focus our efforts.”
The district got almost $163,000 from the last round. Bond said it went to more individual supplies in classrooms to reduce multiple students using hands-on learning materials called manipulatives, as well as professional development for teachers to support their virtual instruction.
Bond added Mt. Vernon has spent about $500,000 on supplies like hand sanitizer, barriers and personal protective equipment to keep students and staff safe throughout the pandemic. The school corporation has applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for reimbursement, but for the time being has absorbed the expenses in the district’s operations fund.
Eastern Hancock is expected to get almost $271,000 and got more than $75,000 from the previous allocation. Dave Pfaff, superintendent of the school corporation, said the funding from the first round was used on personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer along with some cafeteria expenses.
“There are a lot of ideas floating around,” Pfaff said of potential future reimbursements. “We’ve not lined up and not finalized anything there, but we intend it to be forward-looking — how do we address some of the gaps in student learning over the last year.”
Southern Hancock is anticipated to get more than $262,000 after getting more than $67,000 last spring. Wes Anderson, director of school and community relations for the school corporation, noted the funds can be used for a number of things, including cleaning supplies and custodial expenses.
“We have outsourced with a company at times to come in and do a deep sanitize and disinfect treatment in some of our buildings as we’ve had a surge in positive cases,” he added.
Anderson said the corporation is grateful for the funds and that he understands some districts’ needs are greater than others, but that he’s not sure using Title I A is the best way to go about dividing the money.
“We have staffing needs, we have remediation needs, we know learning loss is real,” he said. “We know the mental health aspect on this on our students and on our staff is real. Those costs exist and when this money is split this way, we just don’t get enough.”
He added Southern Hancock would benefit from more nurses and COVID-19 contact tracers as well as staff to help with student remediation, like teachers, instructional assistants and literary specialists.
“There are a million things we could do with this money if there were more of it and it weren’t tied to some of these other factors,” Anderson said.
Allocations for Indiana public and non-public schools total more than $881 million. The second federal stimulus package also includes more than $115 million in discretionary funding available to the state, as well as $327.78 million available for higher education.
