District gets more stimulus money for Chromebooks

With talks on the North Penn’s 2022-23 budget ongoing, school board members have gotten an update on the district’s various COVID stimulus funds, and how much is left to spend.

District finance staff gave a update on those figures in late March, including a new grant that’s adding to the district’s bottom line.

“To date, the district has been awarded $19,088,932 for use by the general fund. You may notice that this is a slightly higher number than reported in January,” said Assistant Director of Business Administration Kristin Johnson.

“Since our last presentation, we were notified that the district was awarded $121,390 through the ARP — Emergency Connectivity fund,” she said.

Starting with the arrival of COVID-19 in 2020, staff have given the board’s finance committee regular updates on various county, state and federal COVID relief bills and funds secured by the district, including the American Rescue Plan bills at the federal level, along with deadlines on when those funds must be spent. In January the district’s total was just over $18.9 million, and on March 22 Johnson gave an updated total that has now topped $19 million, thanks to the most recent grant award.

“These funds require the district to apply for a specific use, from the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC. For North Penn, application of these funds focused on the FCC requirement to help schools provide devices that students need to connect to classrooms,” she said.

North Penn’s application requested that the funds be used to go toward the purchase of Chromebook laptop computers

for students to learn online, and that use was approved, Johnson told the board’s finance committee in a special meeting on March 22. That roughly $121,000 must be spent by the end of June 2022, and has now been added to the list of approximately $3.5 million expended during the 2021-22 schoolyear, which is in addition to the $2.47 million spent in 2020-21.

“That leaves us with eight more grants that will be spent over the next two fiscal years, so fiscal year 2022-23, and 2023-24,” Johnson said.

“Some of these grants are available through September 30th of 2024, which will allow us to put some spending into a third fiscal year, 2024-25, but only through July to September of ’24,” she said.

As she spoke, Johnson showed the committee a series of charts, listing all of the sources of COVID relief funds, the deadlines to spend, and the amounts awarded, already allocated, and projected to spend in each of the upcoming three fiscal years. The largest single award, just over $9.3 million from the American Rescue Plan Elementary and

Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) III bill, gave $9.3 million to the district, of which $1.3 million will be spent as of the end of June, another $3.9 million budgeted to be spent in 2022-23, then $3.7 million in 2023-24 and the remaining $285,000 in 2024-25.

While budget talks are still ongoing and subject to change, district staff are currently projecting roughly $4.6 million will be spent in the 2022-23 budget, followed by just over $4 million in 2023-24, with the vast majority of both coming from the ESSER III allocation. After Johnson outlined the numbers, assistant superintendent D’Ana Waters showed where the funds have gone so far, explaining the district’s virtual learning programs at the elementary and secondary levels, the technology coaches added to help staff and students shift to online instruction, and the various COVID vaccination clinics held at North Penn High School.

“All of these things that we were able to purchase and provide, really did have a positive impact, because we were able to just keep business going as usual, as best we could during a pandemic,” Waters said.

For the 2022-23 budget currently under discussion, staff are currently proposing to spend $3.9 million from the various stimulus funds, and of that total roughly $1.3 million would go toward additional learning coaches, roughly $636,000 for added school climate coordinators, $439,000 for registered behavior technicians and $412,000 for reading aides, Johnson told the committee.

Board member Elisha Gee asked if any of the funds would go toward an increase in guidance counselors, particularly at the middle or high school levels due to an increased need for their help with students after three straight school years impacted by COVID-19.

“I think there’s some kids dealing with some really heavy things,” Gee said, issues that may have been caused or accelerated by the pandemic and related lockdowns, and could be helped by more guidance counselors: “Sometimes we’re talking about kids who never had any issues before, and now they are.”

Waters said increasing the numbers of guidance counselors has been discussed internally by staff, certain elementary schools have also asked for additional counselors, and the final numbers may depend on who the district can hire.

“We do have some flexibility. There’s also no guarantee that we’re going to get all of these positions staffed. It can be fluid,” Waters said, “but you will see some counseling pieces in that set-aside portion.”

Board member Juliane Ramic added that staff and the board will both have to keep in mind that the stimulus funds all have limited time frames, but the need for the counseling or mental health supports provided by the staff hired with those funds, may still remain.

“These are limited funds, with obligation and liquidation periods, that may not be as long-lasting as we would want funding for a counselor position,” she said.

Assistant Superintendent Todd Bauer added that staff are currently “in the thick of” course selection for the 2022-23 schoolyear, and staffing allocations may also change based on that process, using regular district funds or the stimulus allocations.

“Students need more support than ever before. So we have to be creative. If that means a funding adjustment to the grant, then so be it,” Bauer said.

North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. on April 21 and the board finance committee next meets at 6 p.m. on April 12, both online; for more information visit www.NPenn. org.