Albany kids to go to class in April
Total of 1,950 students in grades 7-12 will return in person to their schools
More than half of Albany public school students in grades 7-12 will return to the classroom by April 26, a significant step in the district's plan to rebuild and invest in programs that were stripped away during the pandemic, Albany school board officials said Thursday.
Albany High School and Hackett and Myers middle schools will offer a hybrid program for the fourth quarter, with students in the classroom two or three days per week. O'neill, Clement and North Albany middle schools will offer a full-day program to students who opt in.
District officials are still debating how to spend an unprecedented increase in state aid and more than $46 million in federal aid dollars from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSA) and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) as they map out a budget for the upcoming academic year.
This year's budget is "even more complicated than usual because usually, we have a very limited amount of unrestricted reserves," board President Anne Savage said. "This year, we have this enormous amount of federal money that we can spend. The trick this year is figuring out how to distribute these funds so we don't create a situation where we have to lay people off."
The Albany City School District laid off 222 fulltime employees and suspended in-person learning for most students in grades 7-12 during the COVID -19 pandemic last fall in anticipation of a budget shortfall and potential cuts to state aid.
Some 177 positions have been restored as the district started expanding in-person learning opportunities this spring. District officials say more positions will be added as the 2021-2022 school budget is finalized.
Based on the state aid estimates for the upcoming fiscal year, Albany will see an increase in foundation aid of about $9.5 million over the current year, school officials said.
State leaders have committed to fully restore foundation aid owed to high-need districts — for Albany that would mean another $26 million by the 2023-24 school year — but school finance officials say without legislative action it is too early to count on the state funds coming through.
The federal money can be used for things like remedial education programs to address learning loss, after-school programs, summer school, upgraded ventilation systems, instructional technology, and therapy and social services to address "social-emotional" impacts of the pandemic.
The district will restore and expand its Albany International Center (AIC), which enrolls middle and high school students who are refugees and immigrants. The voluntary program, which provides students with a host of "wrap-around" social services, will soon serve elementary students as well.
The district will be bringing back grades 9-12 at the Tony Clement Center for Education (TCCE), an alternative high school track for at-risk youth.
AIC and TCCE programs were eliminated for 2020-2021 due to budget constraints.
In total 1,950 students in grades 7-12 have opted to return to an in-person or hybrid instructional model for the fourth quarter; about 1,300 students in grades 7-12 have opted for distance learning for the remainder of the school year.
Federal relief funds are available as grants, but their use must meet certain criteria that have yet to be established. Twenty percent of the money must be used to address learning loss, although it's unclear what that might mean. The rest of the money may be spent over a three-year period.
The challenge, school leaders say, is to strategically use the unprecedented influx of state and federal aid to rebuild and expand programming without creating recurring expenses that will result in a fiscal cliff down the line.
"Let's imagine we spent all of our CRSSA money and all of our ARP money, we could do that and man, we could have the best program ever," Savage said. "But then the following year, we would be short $50 million dollars and we'd have absolutely no way to replace that income."
She described such a scenario as one "ludicrous" approach. Another, she said, would be to "not spend any of the money because we know we can't sustain that over time."
"Our job over the next seven days is how are we going to figure out how to deal with the trick of this fiscal cliff," she said.
The plan will inevitably include making use of reserve funds and raising the tax levy between 0.5 percent and 2 percent, Savage said.