The Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education is asking the public for help in formulating a state plan for using federal covid-19 relief money to meet student and teacher needs in the wake of the pandemic.
Agency staff members Friday introduced a survey to go to stakeholders -- particularly those who have significant insight into the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on teaching and learning -- to identify student and school needs and then respond to possible solutions and/or suggest their own.
"Feedback will be used to inform the state's plan for the use of funds received," the survey introduction states, referring to the agency's share of the $1.27 billion that Arkansas education is to receive. The money is the result of the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan enacted by Congress and President Joe Biden this past March.
Much of that covid-19 relief money will go to Arkansas school systems, and the districts have to prepare their own plans for its use. But 10% of the funding is reserved for state agency use.
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Of that 10%, half must be used for activities to address the academic impact of lost instructional time, according to federal guidelines. The rest must be used for carrying out evidence-based summer programs, for after-school programs, and to meet emergency needs identified by the state agency.
The Arkansas spending plan is due to the U.S. Department of Education by June 7.
The survey is accessible here: https://bit.ly/3hsERhw.
The $1.27 billion in American Rescue Plan money to Arkansas comes on top of the $558 million and $128 million Arkansas education received from two earlier rounds of federal covid-19 relief funding.
In announcing the survey, state education leaders on Friday highlighted for the Arkansas Board of Education the efforts on multiple fronts that were undertaken by the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, educators and others to shift to off-site instruction last spring and then open schools for on-site instruction last August.
The state's public schools were open to any student who wanted on-site instruction with occasional, short-term transitions of a class or school to remote instruction when there was a covid-19 outbreak or a need to quarantine because of exposure to covid-19.
COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
"We made it," Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key said about holding school for the entire year -- and even proms and graduations in recent days -- when nearly all other states did not open schools until much later or only recently.
The yearlong efforts included creating award-winning instructional programming to be shown on Arkansas PBS last spring, and collaborations that led to the purchase of 22,000 hot spots and other arrangements to provide students with child-safe internet connectivity.
There was also a state-provided telephone academic helpline for students and parents, the distribution of a free learning management system provided to districts that wanted it, free testing programs for kindergarten through second grades, the shipments of personal protection equipment to districts, and a communication system that gave school district leaders quick access to state education and health agencies for help with their covid-19 pandemic issues.
"It was huge. It was successful and it was something no other state did it as well as Arkansas," Stacy Smith, a deputy education commissioner, said about the communication system, and added that the state repeatedly set the bar for other states to follow in operating during and in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Deputy Education Commissioner Ivy Pfeffer said many people are responsible for that happening.
"But you have to start with our teachers," Pfeffer said. "No matter what we say, what we do or how available we make it, we know teachers are the reason kids came to school in the first place and the reason they stayed in school."
Pfeffer said there are remaining concerns for schools, including a 6,000-student drop to 473,000 student in public school enrollment with the largest drop in kindergarten. A partnership with the Graduation Alliance organization to find disengaged high school students has shown that a large majority of those students have obligations such as work and care of siblings that hinder their school attendance. There are also concerns about the social and emotional well-being of students as the result of the pandemic and the kinds of support they will need.
ASSISTING TEACHERS
Some uses for the different rounds of federal funding have been identified.
Smith said the federal money will be used on literacy instruction for the state's youngest children who have not been in school or have been hindered by masks in learning phonics and how to read.
Key said partnerships have been formed with the state's different universities and colleges to provide teachers with additional college credit hours in fields such as computer science, special education and online instruction. Teachers who take and complete course work at summer academies -- at no cost to them -- will be able to add endorsements in high-need fields to their state teaching licenses.
"These are ideas that came from thinking about what do we need? What are we hearing from the field on what the needs are?" Key said and added that the funds will be available over a few years, making it possible to expand or duplicate the academies later.
Key said the American Rescue Plan money can be used by school districts for a broad range of expenses but they do have to be related to covid-19. Replacement of a deteriorating roof is not likely to be related to covid-19 but the purchase of heating and air conditioning systems or expanding the bus fleet might be justified.
"If there was ever time for Arkansas to leapfrog -- if there was ever a time to do capacity building and think differently about what we are doing in our state in education -- this is it," Smith said. "We have already set the bar on a lot of things that people nationally thought we couldn't do . It's about thinking differently ... so that when the money is gone, it's not over, that we've actually built something that will last long past the funding."