School seeks input on uses for federal COVID funds
RANDOLPH — Randolph Public Schools will be applying for another round of federal COVID-19 grant funds and the school would like citizen input on how to spend the money.
The school recently received notice it would be eligible to receive a third wave of COVID-19 relief grant funds totaling about $230,000 through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) of 2021.
The money is designated to help schools safely reopen, sustain healthy operations, and address significant academic, social, emotional and mental health needs of students as the country recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, said Supt. Jeff Hoesing.
He said Randolph Public Schools weathered the COVID-19 pandemic better than other areas of the country and was only forced to close for two months – March 19 to May 19, 2020.
He credits that to the flexibility of district staff, parents, and students.
“Together, our determination to continue teaching and grading new material during the closure and our families’ positive response to that, kept learning loss to a minimum,” he said. “Granted, we can never get those two months back, but our collective actions during that time went a long way to help us return to normal this past school year.”
To apply for this third wave of ARP grant funds, the school must outline its budget and detail how the funds will be spent by Sept. 1.
There are several requirements to the grant money that the school must consider, Hoesing said.
For example, one grant requirement is that 20 percent must be spent addressing learning loss caused by the pandemic. Another requirement is to provide an opportunity for community stakeholders to provide their opinions on the use of funds and Randolph’s back to school plan.
The allocated grant money must be spent by Sept. 30, 2024.
Randolph’s back to school plan and more information about allowable uses of the grant monies can be found on the Randolph Public Schools webpage along with corresponding surveys to gain community feedback.
Hoesing said he would like to use this third wave of COVID grant monies to help defray expenses that are already planned.
“I don’t think it’s wise to create projects just to get this spent down or start things that will require annual funding after the grant runs out,” he said.
He said learning loss has already been largely mitigated or mostly recovered so it will be a challenge to spend the $46,000 as required by the grant to address that area.
Randolph Schools initially received $27,000 in the first wave of ARP relief money in the Spring of 2020. At that time, the school purchased enough Chromebooks for each family to use during the forced school closure at the end of the 2019-20 school year.
A second wave of monies totaling $102,000 came in Spring 2021. Of that money, $20,500 was used to replace 52 iPads for lower elementary and 20 Chromebooks at the high school. Another $43,000 was used to purchase a new K-6 foundational reading series which will be implemented in Fall 2021. The remainder of the money is earmarked for a future K-12 math curriculum purchase which will be implemented this Fall as well, Hoesing said.
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