For two small districts, no COVID-19 funds
Indian Lake, Long Lake have a high percentage, but too low a total of kids in poverty
When schools across the state were preparing to reopen during the pandemic, expenses shot up.
Air filters, masks, hand sanitizer and technology for remote learning pushed up the cost of educating students.
Thus, when the American Rescue Plan was passed earlier this year, schools everywhere were welcoming the relief.
But two Hamilton County school districts — Indian Lake and Long Lake central school districts — were dismayed to find they were excluded, because, they were told, they did not have enough children living in poverty.
“The district has to have 10 students, ages 5 to 17, living in poverty,” said Long Lake Superintendent Noelle Short. “We were told that according to the census we have five. Our more current population, we have 40 percent of our students who receive free and reduced lunch. If they used a percentage and not a standalone number, we would more than qualify.”
She attributes the discrepancy to the use of old census data for her district of 70 students. She also said she has already spent $25,000 on prepping school, but really needs the additional money for learning loss — staffing for afterschool and this summer’s programs for students who struggled during the
months of remote learning.
Dave Snide, superintendent of schools at Indian Lake, who said his free and reduced lunch rate is 38 percent, said that he was especially aggravated that districts with similar population profiles — Lake Pleasant ($213,331), Minerva ($279,766), Newcomb ($163,997), Tupper Lake ($1,886,051), Wells ($262,047) and others — did receive funding.
“I don’t want to sound like sour grapes,” said Snide, who has spent more than $50,000 to sanitize and supply the school with PPE. “But it was just the two of us. It’s a little disheartening. We could really use it.”
Short and Snide said they reached out to all of their elected officials on the state and federal level. State Assemblyman Robert Smullen, R-johnstown, responded early on to their concerns. He wrote a letter to state Education Commissioner Betty Rosa, asking her to find a solution.
“Indian Lake and Long Lake Central School Districts’ finances got hit by the pandemic just as hard as neighboring school
districts’ finances did,” Smullen wrote. “While neighboring school districts received hundreds of thousands of funding .... Indian Lake and Long Lake have received nothing, but they are just as much deserving.”
Others advocated for them too, including David Little, the executive director of Rural Schools Association of New York; Robert Lowry, deputy director of New York State Council of School Superintendents; and Dale Breault Jr. district superintendent Franklin-essex-hamilton BOCES. All wrote to state and federal elected leaders and education officials. Breault wrote Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer that he was “imploring you to assist us in advocating for our school communities.”
Schumer’s office said that the aid package provided the state with discretionary
COVID funding that could have been used for the excluded schools.
Other larger, wealthier districts in Westchester and Long Island, including Chappaqua, Briarcliff Manor and Bridgehampton, were also deemed not needy enough based on the formula for funding from the American Rescue Plan.
Freeman Klopott, press officer for the state Division of Budget, explained the American Rescue Plan required the state to base 90 percent of its allocation funding on a Title 1 formula, which is based on students in poverty. He also said that the remaining funds were used “to expand access to pre-kindergarten and provide additional aid to school districts of lower wealth.”
He said Indian Lake and Long Lake, which are land rich districts in the heart of the Adirondacks, did not receive the funding because their combined income and property wealth per pupil is greater than 96 percent of districts.
All is not lost, however. The districts are now pinning their hopes on state
bullet aid, the targeted package of funding that goes to schools, libraries and nonprofits in June. With that in mind, Sen. James Tedisco (R-glenville) and Smullen sent a letter to the state Budget Director Robert Mujica on Wednesday to ask for an allocation to Indian Lake and Long Lake schools “in their time of dire need.”
“These two schools are challenged in many ways,” Tedisco said on Friday. “We can’t change the formula, but we have $10 million in bullet aid. They do deserve some assistance.”
Short said at this point she has not considered how exactly she would spend the funding if she gets it. She has been too busy lobbying for the funding.
“I’ve been knocking on doors, and trying suggesting pathways and creative ideas and it has fallen on deaf ears,” Short said. “It’s an easy fix, the money is there. This is a big bill for us. … The criteria is to have students who live in need and we more than meet the mark. We just don’t fit the formula.”