The education industry is bracing for potential job cuts and reduced raises as a large batch of coronavirus pandemic funding is set to dry up.
The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) grants, which will end in September, were used to help students with mental health and test score issues that have arisen with COVID-19, including the addition of teaching positions. counselors to reading specialists.
Now, those jobs could be the first to go when federal funding runs out.
“[T]The loss of federal ESSER funding will mean that we will not be able to bring back the additional acceleration teachers, in-person tutors, and other supports, such as literacy and math programs, that have been critical to the growth we have achieved thus far,” said Patricia Brantley, CEO of Friendship Public Charter Schools in Washington, D.C.
Data from Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab showed that 40 to 50 percent of ESSER funds were spent on labor costs, including increasing teacher salaries and adding more staff, especially learning specialists, tutors and counselors.
“It seems that proportionally there was much greater growth within the area, what we call non-teaching staff. So, this means that someone has a certificate granted by the state to work in their field”, said Marguerite Roza, research professor and director of the Edunomy Laboratory. “So it could be a librarian, a counselor, a social worker, a nurse, a reading coach, even a vice principal or assistant principal, things like that.”
“We’ve also seen a huge increase in the number of paraprofessionals, which are like classroom aides or special education aides in special education classes. And I don’t anticipate that we’ll see that much shrinkage in those cases because in some of those cases, they’re replacing teachers,” Roza added.
During the pandemic, schools received approximately $200 million in three rounds of ESSER funding, with more money going to high-poverty schools.
The Brookings Institute released a report in September that said once the money runs out, it will lead to an annual reduction of more than $1,000 per student.
“Districts have struggled to keep teachers in classrooms, to recruit enough teachers, and to support staff. Some pay raises and pay raises were part of what districts used to support pandemic money. So it’s absolutely true that it’s going to be difficult for districts to sustain all of this at a time when funds are running low,” said Lindsay Dworkin, senior vice president of policy and government affairs at the Northwest Evaluation Association, an educational research firm.
Some districts say that to avoid such a fate, they were very careful in how they spent the grant money.
“We intentionally do not use the funds to make investments in personnel. We funded a school nurse through ESSER, but moved that position to the general fund. We did not want to provide students with a level of service that we could not sustain when funds expired,” said Tricia Mooney, superintendent of schools for Hermiston School District 8R in Oregon.
“I know from talking to other superintendents that this has not been the case statewide. Several districts used the one-time funds to make investments in staffing and are now having to eliminate those positions,” Mooney added.
Investments in these types of roles were made as students saw test scores plummet to a point not seen in decades, as well as jumps in mental health and behavioral issues.
State of Teaching Education Week survey released Monday found that 94 percent of preschool through third-grade teachers believe it is more challenging now for students to listen and follow instructions compared to five years ago. Seventy-seven percent say these young students have even more difficulty with fine motor skills, such as using a pencil or scissors.
“Unfortunately, I think some of the positions that are most at risk of being cut are the positions that are needed more now than ever due to the ongoing impacts: social workers, school nurses, school counselors, behavior specialists, etc. with social, emotional and mental well-being issues and critically need these supports to thrive academically,” Mooney said.
While there is essentially no chance of more federal money being provided before ESSER runs out, schools have been asking voters to support more local education taxes and negotiating with unions for lower pay raises in order to keep additional staff hired. during the pandemic.
“None of those [options] they are palatable, but in some states, we will see really flat or no salary increases this year, and that will be how they can survive without trying to eliminate those positions,” Roza said.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
