SAUGUS — At a School Committee meeting Thursday, members reviewed state and federal grants the town’s schools have received, and voted to accept a $10,000 grant from Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration to bolster school safety.
The committee meeting was held immediately following a finance subcommittee meeting, where Deputy Superintendent Dr. Margaret Ferrick walked members through existing and anticipated grants the town has received, totaling more than $4 million, though not all of those funds are applicable for fiscal year 2023.
Ferrick began by breaking down Title I funding, which the state receives from the federal government and then doles out. The town, for fiscal year 2023, received roughly $475,000 in Title I funds, which are intended to provide financial assistance to districts and schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families. That figure sits at 46.9 percent in Saugus.
“Because socioeconomic status is considered a factor as we know from transportation, as
a factor for students having difficulty in school that’s why the federal government gives us the Title I money,” Superintendent Erin McMahon said.
The district, based on priorities set by the federal government, aims to use the funding for support staff, including a math enrichment specialist, and a student support specialist as well as stipends for data team leaders, data team specialists, and elementary literacy leaders. Funds will also go towards contractual services like administrator coaching and supplies, including family engagement and on-line programs.
Title II funds, which follow the same allocation process as Title I, are intended to provide supplemental resources to school districts to “support systems of support for excellent teaching and leading,” according to a breakdown of the grants provided to subcommittee members.
The district has received nearly $75,000 in Title II funds for fiscal year 2023, with money going to professional development for teachers as well as teacher mentors and mentor leaders.
“If you look at Title II, that’s used for our PD and we use it for our teacher mentors, mentor leaders, all of us we all of us have leadership coaches, outside of the district and that supports that,” Ferrick said. “And then we have some money for supplies.”
Title III, Ferrick said, is the “allocation for students that are English language learners, emerging bilingual,” noting that 8.5 percent of students in Saugus are considered emerging bilingual, and 23.2 percent of students did not learn English as their first language, but are bilingual.
“This is usually not a huge amount of money and it’s actually a really complicated group of money to spend because the restrictions on it are just really hard,” Ferrick said. Title III funds total just over $39,000 for fiscal year 2023, and are also distributed by the state, which receives the funds from the federal government.
The smallest pool of grant money received by the district from the federal government via the state is Title IV funds, which total just over $30,000. Ferrick said Title IV is the district’s “social emotional learning bucket of money.”
“We are using it to build the capacity within each school for all things climate and culture, social emotional, we created a climate and culture team leader, which is parallel to our data team leaders, but just the other side of the triangle to make sure,” Ferrick said.
“We’re really trying to strengthen the systems that support students so that we are being proactive versus reactive,” McMahon added.
The next pool of funds reviewed by the subcommittee were those allocated under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the nearly $700,000 the district has received through that grant, Ferrick said, is primarily spent on transportation.
Ferrick then walked the committee through the Early Childhood Special Education grant, which the district received over $19,200 in funding from. That money has been used to fund one paraprofessional and is intended to ensure that eligible three, four, and five-year-old children with disabilities “receive a free and appropriate public education that includes special education and related services designed to meet their individual needs in the least restrict environment.”
The final grant reviewed by the subcommittee is the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER, and the district has $3.1 million remaining in the fund to be spent between now and September 2024.
“This is essentially a million dollars each year for three years,” McMahon said.
ESSER, Ferrick said, is a “bit of a beast” and is intended to help schools meet students’ “academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.” While the subcommittee did not in detail discuss the district priorities stemming from the grant, Superintendent Erin McMahon said “a majority of it is has been spent on roles that support better teaching.”
Those roles, McMahon said, include five curriculum coaches, a STEAM project manager, a stipend for the nurse lead, a “couple” paraprofessionals and IT support.
The subcommittee then reviewed competitive grants the district has applied for and received as well as grants from multiple sources including the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, foundations, federal programming and “other sources.”
Those grants include $500,000 for the planning and implementation of an early college program at the middle/high school, which Ferrick said the district was confident it would receive for the next two years, bringing the total to $1.5 million. Funds received also include $42,400 an OpenSciEd program through Boston College, and $32,500 from the Essex County Learning Collaborative to support hiring initiatives with the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
During the meeting of the full committee, members voted to accept the $10,000 safe and supportive schools grant from the state Department of Education.
“The grant … really helps support building a safe and supportive school environment,” Ferrick said. “We’re spending about $2,000 for staff to complete it’s called the reflection tool and it’s really a way to assess how we are meeting the social emotional needs of our students at the middle high school and after they complete the tool they create an action plan moving forward. … We also put aside a significant amount of money to bring in Dr. Jennifer Freeman who is a University of Connecticut professor as well as a national expert on Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) to help implement PBIS district wide.”
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
