And now for a little dose of reality…

Today’s newspaper contained an op-ed expressing concern about how many states have not spent their emergency relief funds for K-12 education (https://freopp.org/143-billion-in-emergency-k-12-education-funding-remains-unspent-bfb8bdc87a1) For those of you who haven’t read it, here’s the gist from a few key lines from the opening of the article.

“During the pandemic, Congress and the U.S. Department of Education have awarded more than $150 billion in federal funding to state departments of education to reopen K-12 schools and address students’ needs while schools were closed. But new data from the Department of Education show that states have spent less than 6 percent of the emergency funds provided since March 2020.”

“As May 31st, nearly $143 billion remained unspent. That’s enough to provide emergency grants worth more than $5,000 per child to 26 million children from low-income households. States will receive additional funding authorized by the American Rescue Plan later this year.” The author goes on to note that 17 states have not spent a single dollar of their CCRSA ESSER funds. My own state, Indiana, has spent only 8% of the $1.1 billion awarded to it to help schools close learning gaps and operate safely in a pandemic.

The unspent money is not surprising to me. But articles like this and the conclusions they may cause readers to jump to—that educators or state education leaders don’t care enough about kids to spend the money they’ve been given to help them—make me a little crazy. Here’s a dose of reality: it is actually harder than people imagine for schools/state education agencies to suddenly spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in thoughtful and effective ways.

As most of us know, there are only a few ways to put this money to use: people, programs, supplies/equipment, instructional materials, buildings/grounds. Even things like transportation or security or mental health basically break down into people, equipment, materials, and building-related expenses like cleaning products or gas for buses or HVAC. The obvious intent of most of these dollars is safety/health-related expenses or helping close academic gaps/emotional needs due to pandemic learning loss. I am sure people will wonder why schools haven’t jumped at the chance to spend thousands of dollars on kids who are behind. What’s wrong with them?

The truth is that getting any new program (no matter how helpful or well-funded) off the ground takes capacity—something we don’t always have in school districts. Sure, some districts will use the money to buy a computer-tutor program, but even something as simple as assessing a new software product and ensuring the infrastructure exists to install/maintain/integrate it takes more time than strapped one or two-person departments have. These are things that remain on school district to-do lists year after year, getting bumped to the bottom even in the best of times…and these are not the best of times.

In a year like the one we’ve just come through in schools, there’s even less appetite to figure out new projects; people are in survival mode, frantic just trying to staff every classroom in a national teacher shortage and tough employment market for hourly staff like custodians and instructional assistants. It’s taking hundreds of extra hours for schools/districts to comply with rapidly-changing government safety standards, communicate clearly with parents, contact trace staff/students, and quell or at least respond thoughtfully to the local CRT/masking wars. So while it sounds shocking that they haven’t spent this money, I have to admit I’m dubious even about districts that announce they are using it to start massive tutoring initiatives—unless they have such a program in place already that they are just beefing up with the new money.

Think about something that sounds as innocuously good as “a powerful tutoring program to aid students who’ve lost learning—accelerating their growth so they can catch up.” Doesn’t that sound wonderful? What a great use of these funds. Why aren’t ALL the districts doing that? Geesh…kids are behind; what are they waiting for?

Now, think about the execution…and consider that no matter if it’s in a huge urban district with 80 schools and tens of thousands of students or a wealthy suburban enclave with 10 schools and 7500 students, the same steps for execution occur. They may be more challenging in the larger district, but they also have more staff/capacity to throw at the problem. As a former district administrator/school leader, I know from experience that starting any new program has similar decision-making protocols and challenges—no matter where you work.

Let’s just take the tutoring program, for example. The one that sounded so great above. We’ll pair kids up with a caring, intelligent, prepared/organized adult—maybe in really small ratios like 1:2 or 1: 5 even. That person will work with them diligently and patiently for a few hours a week for a whole semester, and they will catch up in reading or math with that extra help and attention. And the government dollars will help us pay for the whole thing! It’s a perfect solution.

To start a “tutoring program” you have to have someone to run point. No problem. The curriculum director or his/her/their team will take that on. They have a lot to do, but they’ll add starting this new program to the list for the 2021 school year. Or maybe the overscheduled Title I coordinator (who may be the same person in a small district). Or the “at risk” coordinator (same person again). Or a principal in the lowest performing school… Or an intern. Doesn’t matter. Someone will add it to an already-full plate. We don’t keep people in schools who have nothing to do. We can’t afford it. Let’s assume someone will take that on and agree to get it off the ground in these late-summer/early-fall months along with everything else involved with getting everyone back to school. We could even use some of the money to pay them a little stipend for being the “program coordinator” which will also mean we can saddle them with the extra hours of documenting all the compliance information and budget specifics they will need for the reporting requirements associated with federal dollars. (I’ve done those reports for Title grants. They make doing your taxes look like a walk in the park.)

So…we’ve got a leader. Now let’s get to the program. Tutoring. Okay…we’ll have to identify kids. Need a protocol. What tests will we use? Have to ensure that the process fairly considers all students. Probably need triangulated data. Should we allow opt-ins, make it required or by invitation? Everyone will have an opinion. We’ll need to talk it through and decide and then field the calls of those who disagreed about whatever plan we had for identification and make some exceptions on a case-by-case basis and document those in case of complaints. And we will need clear, transparent, abundant communication with parents who may not read what we send until the last minute or at all. Some will want to follow up with a call to someone to explain it, so we’ll need to be prepared to set time aside for some meetings or calls with parents about why their child is being considered for extra help…or not…or how this impacts his/her ability to attend volleyball practice.

So we’ve got a pool of kids who need help. What else? Timing: after school, before, or during? Will we take attendance? Will we have some consequence for not coming, or will we risk paying someone to sit in an empty room when kids don’t show? How will we assess progress? We will have to have data to document the program success. Our IT folks or some administrative assistant will need to create groups in our student management system so we can disaggregate demographics and learning data for federal/state reporting as well. As for the testing of progress—what tests will we use and how often? Will we just wait for the annual state test? Use NWEA in fall/winter/spring? Who will administer the extra NWEA if we go that route and where—since those are computer-based and have specific testing protocols? We could use teacher-created tests, but those are less reliable. And who would design them? For elementary kids behind in reading, we can use running records, but we’ll want to be sure we have people who are trained to administer. How will we know the tutoring is working?

Now…let’s get to the main thing: staffing. Who will our tutors be?Teachers are unionized, and, depending on contract agreements, may need their hourly rate—which can be pretty high for experienced teachers, so we need to consider the cost of using licensed staff—provided we can even get them. Many are coaching or doing other after-school activities or second jobs or have families of their own to get to after work ends. We could use non-licensed staff, but it’s hard to find enough of these people whom we can trust to work without supervision with children doing work that requires some skill in both content and instructional strategy. Also, at middle school and above, for math we will specifically need math teachers with enough expertise to help close learning gaps. How do we find enough of them who want to add more hours to already-long days? At one high school, the only guy who might have the expertise to help with geometry is coaching football till November if we go deep enough into the state tournament. No problem, we’ll hire some math-savvy college kids from the local School of Ed…but they can’t get here till 4 PM and school ends at 3:10. And the university wants them to have some staff supervisor for liability reasons. We will likely need to pay someone to watch the kids in study hall till they arrive and stay through till the session ends. We will also need plans for staffing when the tutors don’t show up or resign unexpectedly. Will we cancel? Have a sub?

Also, the kids may need a snack if we keep them till 5 or beyond. When your lunch is at 10:20 AM, you’re pretty hungry by 5 and that’s not optimal for learning. If we have food, that means we’ll need custodial clean-up afterwards in the space, or we’ll have a problem with bugs/rodents eventually. Gotta get with the custodial crew to let them know they’ll need to add a last pass of that area to their schedule or factor it in. And we also need to let the district HVAC guy know that we’ll need some cooling/heating in that space after hours. Most school systems shut off a short time after school ends, and it will get uncomfortably warm fast.

We probably also need materials specific to the tutoring so it is more than just homework help: what kind and how will we differentiate for the multi-grade group we will serve? Where will we store them? Where will we have the program? Do we need to find space in each school or transport kids somewhere central? Will we need computer labs? Will software need to be loaded and groups set up in the software so kids are registered and able to log-in and track progress so the program adjusts for their lesson needs? If it’s after school, how do we transport kids home when they are finished? Late bus drivers will need to run additional routes, and the kids live all over the district, so we have to make sure we have enough buses that it isn’t a longer ride than the session itself, so that requires someone in the transportation department to create routes based on where the kids live once we know who is coming. And we will need to communicate all that to parents so they know when to expect their child. And someone will need to remain at school/district/available by phone till the last bus has dropped off the last child to make sure that a parent can reach someone in the event a child doesn’t show up.

We will probably need individualized tracking and materials (lesson plans, as it were) for the tutoring time each day…oh, and some guidelines/options for the kids who aren’t working with a tutor. MS kids won’t just sit and wait quietly for their turn to learn. Also, we need to be sure we also offer the tutoring to any special education or English-learning student and that we make the tutor aware of their IEP/ILP goals/modifications/needs so they can have the type of instruction that is effective for them. Also, Jimmy’s mom wants him to come because he’s a holy terror after hours at home and nearly set his sister on fire last week. He isn’t technically behind academically due to the pandemic and his disability is oppositional defiant disorder, but legally, we are safest to allow him the opportunity to attend, but he’ll have to have a one-on-one assistant with him or he’ll hurt someone and disrupt the whole thing…so we need to find a special ed IA who will work extra hours, but that puts her into enough hours a week to need healthcare, and that sets a precedent we need to avoid…

You get the idea.

And that might be why the dollars are unspent. Just my two cents.

Not every district or state will struggle in the ways I’ve described. And I know some are already putting some powerful new ideas in place to use these dollars to help students (or to upgrade ancient HVAC systems so they can filter the air in case of future disease outbreaks…also something that needs doing). But in my experience, government aid packages happen as a result of idyllic thinking and school spending happens in the hard realities of…schools and human lives. My own hunch is that unless this money can be spent on new personnel (something that schools hesitate to do with “soft money” because it is hard to bring on new staff and depend on them only to have to fire them when the money to pay them evaporates), cleaning supplies/PPE/buildings and grounds, or a specific buy of some learning or SEL software/data management system they’d already been eyeing, millions of these dollars will be wasted or not spent at all.

Will that be the fault of educators? A failure of their ability, desire, or imagination when it comes to helping kids ?

I don’t think so.

Sent from my iPad