Is there really a chance that schools won’t spend all their ESSER funds?

Some media reports have raised concerns about districts missing deadlines and having to return COVID relief dollars.

Most experts are not sounding the alarm about school leaders not spending their bounty of ESSER funds on time. Not yet, at least.

Some media reports have raised concerns about districts missing deadlines and having to return vital COVID relief funds. One reason may be that districts spent the first two rounds of ESSER funding quickly on immediate needs such as laptops, Wi-Fi hotspots, PPE and COVID tests.

Now, more than two years into the pandemic, administrators are being more deliberate and strategic about using American Rescue Plan money on long-term initiatives such as reversing learning loss, says Elleka Yost, director of advocacy at ASBO International, the association for school finance leaders. “It’s not always in the best interest to spend the funds immediately,” Yost says. “When you’re trying to assess community needs, when you’re trying to do research on what are the evidence-based and effective tutoring and academic recovery programs, those are things you don’t want districts spending willy-nilly on without doing their homework.”

By now, districts should have spent most of their ESSER I and II funds. What should cause concern if a district has not yet made its ARP spending plan even though the deadline is not until 2024, Yost adds. Also, the initiatives many administrators have in mind for their ARP funds are longer-term–in other words, salaries for new staff to tackle learning loss aren’t paid all at once. This could make it appear that districts are dragging their feet on spending.

And there’s also a good chance some deadlines could be extended if districts face extenuating circumstances, such as supply shortages delaying construction projects, Yost says. “I don’t foresee districts having to return the money,” she says. “They’re trying to make the best decisions they can, considering the messy economic and labor realities we’re dealing with.”

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ASBO encourages school leaders to spend on initiatives that don’t incur long-term commitments. Paying staff bonuses for hard work done during the pandemic will put less pressure on finances than permanent salary increases. Administrators can also prioritize investments that are more likely to receive local, state or federal funding once the ARP funds run out. “To make a lasting difference, this has to be a partnership between districts, states and the federal government,” she says. “These one-time funds are extremely helpful for responding to a crisis but they’re not enough to make up for years of underinvestment in education.”

Largest investment ever

School leaders are, of course, required to share their ESSER spending plans with the public. And some districts, such as Houston ISD, have been praised for creating online dashboards that are extensive and user-friendly. The district’s new superintendent, Millard House II, was determined to show taxpayers that the $1.1 billion of ESSER funds Houston ISD received were being spent equitably and strategically, says August Hamilton, a special assistant to the superintendent.

Houston ISD's ESSER dashboard.
Houston ISD’s ESSER dashboard. (Click to visit)

Houston ISD is a decentralized district, which means funds are distributed to schools where principals have a great deal of autonomy over how the money is spent. The central office distributes funds based on a host of risk factors, such as student performance, absenteeism, teen birth rates and the community’s average level of educational attainment.

Now, the district is closely tracking ESSER spending, which is focused on accelerating learning and student safety. Administrators are holding weekly monitoring meetings as they, like every other school district, grapple with tangled supply chains and labor pressures. “We intensively track spending vs. the timelines and we are making adjustments along the way,” Hamilton says. “This the largest investment in public education that we may ever see and having transparency is important for taxpayers to know they can trust the school district.”


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Many other large districts are planning to invest ARP funding in staff, including counselors, tutors and overtime for teachers, says Bree Dusseault, principal and managing director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a think tank and research organization at Arizona State University. “If you lay that over the hiring shortages that exist, it may be that districts have strategies to spend it on people but can’t find people to spend it on,” Dusseault says. “The 2021-22 school year has been a year for planning and orienting, and the spending is just starting to flow.”

It has been difficult to track ESSER spending on a national scale as not all districts have been as transparent as districts such as Houston ISD, Baltimore City Public Schools and Indianapolis Public Schools. Some school systems have not made their plans easy to find, Dusseault says. “The funds are designed to be flexible so districts can be responsive to their communities and engage in meaningful consultation with stakeholders,” she says. “Something to be concerned about is the fact that not all districts are following those parameters.”

This lack of transparency could make it harder for districts to get support for future funding requests. “The common narrative around schools is that they’re underfunded,” Dusseault says. “Now, they have access to an unprecedented amount of funds, and how well they steward these funds can dictate whether they get this kind of opportunity again.”

Matt Zalaznick
Matt Zalaznick
Matt Zalaznick is a life-long journalist. Prior to writing for District Administration he worked in daily news all over the country, from the NYC suburbs to the Rocky Mountains, Silicon Valley and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He's also in a band.

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