LYNN ― The School Committee has officially approved Lynn Public Schools’ (LPS) allocation plan for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) III funds.
This funding opportunity comes from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to help meet students’ academic and mental health needs, related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to support schools in remaining open.
The district was given around $42 million to spend in three years.The funds can be used for almost anything related to the recovery from the pandemic, including student learning initiatives and programs, mental health programs, technology, professional learning, and more. The funds cannot be used to purchase or build buildings, or for renovations or updates that exceed $30,000 without permission.
Superintendent of LPS Dr. Patrick Tutwiler said it’s easiest to think of the fund expenditures in three big buckets, including academics, where 20 percent or around $8 million needs to be spent; social, emotional and mental well-being of the students; and operations.
Prior to Thursday night’s meeting, the district requested input from stakeholders from the LPS community by creating a survey to determine the best ways to use these funds, which was translated into five languages and sent out on social media and by text message and emails.
Respondents to this survey identified four priorities including facility improvements, access to high-quality material, academic intervention, and social-emotional support.
In regards to using the ESSER III funding to meet the needs of students and staff, respondents said they’d like to see decreasing class sizes, expanding clinical resources for students and staff regarding mental and physical health, addressing facility needs by building new schools ― which Tutwiler addressed as a funding restriction ― addressing ventilation, and other safety-related facility concerns, and increasing pay and benefits for staff.
Between the input from the stakeholders and district insight on addressing students’ needs, Tutwiler said learning recovery and acceleration, well-being and healthy schools are three topics that frame the allocation plan.
Tutwiler said the plan allocates a little more than 55 percent of the funds, around $23 million, to be devoted to learning recovery and acceleration to “support a broad set of initiatives designed to illuminate learning gaps created or broadened due to circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Some of this learning recovery includes after-school tutoring and summer learning programs, special-education compensatory programs, acceleration intervention programming during the day, instructional technology equipment, and staffing additions and professional development.
The plan proposes that 25 percent, around $10.5 million, be allocated to well-being initiatives, including the expansion of access to clinical support in schools, professional development, and refining and/or expanding existing social-emotional learning initiatives in clinical services.
The plan then allocates 20 percent, about $8.4 million, to healthy schools, which includes HVAC repairs and upgrades and related projects and enhancement to buildings that support a safe and conducive learning experience for students and staff.
Tutwiler said he is planning to form an advisory, which is a representative group of stakeholders serving as partners to provide perspective as they continue to work with the funds.
Upon the approval of this grant, which Tutwiler assumes should take about a month, the district will then begin leveraging these funds to do the work listed in the plan.
