During an annual report to the New Richmond Exempted Village School District Board of Education, Student Services Director John Frye outlined appropriations and expenditures tied to Title Funds and ESSER III money.
Title Funds
New Richmond receives a little more than $1 million in Title funds.
Title 1 - Allocation is $467,000 - New Richmond pays for our six reading specialists, two at each elementary school and two at the middle school. There’s also a set aside amount for homeless transportation that will be used during this school year. Some of these funds are also shared with area nonpublic schools that educate some NREVSD students.
Title 2 - Allocation is $82,900 - New Richmond provides for tech integration training with a tech integration technologist on the main campus serving the 6-12 buildings and teachers.
Title 4 - Allocation is $28,000, Student Support and Academic Achievement - New Richmond pays its Curriculum Leads’ salaries and benefits. The Curriculum Leads positions were created when Mr. Miller came to New Richmond. The positions were instrumental in writing the courses of study for the district that address critical question No. 1 which is “what do we want students to know.”
Title 6B - Allocation is $513,700, Special Education Fund - It entirely supports related services for the district’s special needs students. Those related services include speech and language pathologists, occupational physical therapists, behavior specialists, and one-to-one paraprofessionals.
Additional funds - A small amount of Title Funds, $8,000, is used for special education needs in the Early Childhood program, students ages 3-5. The board pays about $220,000 in salaries and benefits to serve those children.
ESSER III
The ESSER funds are provided by the US Federal Government to schools and other governmental agencies. New Richmond Schools will receive about $2.84 million in ESSER III funds, of which 20 percent, about $564,000, must be spent to address the so-called COVID Slide.
The COVID slide is where children have fallen behind due to the COVID-19 related disruption of school, Mr. Frye said. Several approaches are planned here in New Richmond Schools to help address the COVID slide.
For example, math coaches are being used at our elementary and middle schools to provide support for students who are struggling or have fallen behind and training for staff
ESSER funds covered the cost of Summer School in 2021 and will also be used to offer Summer School in 2022.
Within the next month, NREVSD will roll out a new after-school program. The program will be in place for two years and will provide intervention for students who are experiencing the COVID slide.
The ESSER funds also covered the cost of online digital access to textbooks that are accessible through our learning management system. The online access will provide support for students at home. The district is also purchasing intervention materials that will be available to teachers to provide intervention to their students in their classroom and outside of the school.
Additionally, $45,000 is being used over the next two years to cover the cost of COVID-19 related needs such as disinfectants and air filtration for HVAC systems. Another $70,000 is being used for transportation supports.
A large portion of the funds is directed to reduce the negative impact of a reduction in force and the loss of revenue due to the pandemic.
If members of our community have other ideas on how the district should spend the Esser III fund or future ESSER funds, please contact Mr. Frye, who serves as the district’s Federal Programs Coordinator, [email protected].