The Indiana Department of Education recently launched a statewide COVID-19 relief school spending dashboard that can be viewed by the public.

The dashboard reflects COVID-19 federal relief grant fund reimbursements as part of schools’ locally developed spending plans, which are focused on improving student learning.

“Empowered by historic levels of state and federal education funding, schools have an unparalleled opportunity to improve students’ educational outcomes with these dollars,” said Katie Jenner, Indiana secretary of education. “To most impactfully invest these funds, we must focus on accelerating student learning, supporting educators, promoting sustainable innovation and updating technology and other infrastructure.”

Jenner said the state continues to support local schools to ensure the funding is ultimately driving improvements and progress that positively impacts students.

The dashboard reflects grant allocations and reimbursements from the three rounds of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding and competitive grants that were awarded to schools from federal Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funding.

ESSER funding is proportionally allocated to local school districts based on the federal Title I formula. Reimbursements are made to local districts once they spend the funds on approved expenses as part of their locally developed plans.

Across Indiana, $2.8 billion in federal funding has been allocated to school districts. Currently, more than $550 million in expenditures have been reimbursed with school districts continuing to submit for reimbursements on expenses allowed by law.

To date, these funds have commonly been used to strategically accelerate student learning, support educators, promote sustainable innovation and update technology and other infrastructure. School corporations have placed a focus on using the funds to help support student learning impacted by COVID-19-related learning disruptions.

Steve Nauman, business manager for Seymour Community School Corp., said Seymour has taken a very different approach than other schools.

“We believe that the learning loss is not something that will be resolved in just a few years. It may take some students several years,” Nauman said. “With that in mind, we budgeted our funds in equal amounts over a three-year period with a plan to be able to sustain what we have started with the ESSER grants.”

He said the hope is to continue the programs and staffing for many, many years, not just three.

Through the COVID-19 relief federal funding, Seymour was allocated $8.8 million and reimbursed $1.1 million and has $7.7 million remaining.

Nauman said the $571,704 ESSER I CARES Act funds were to be used to help with expenses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those funds have to be spent by Sept. 30.

The $2,527,690 in ESSER II funds need to be spent on COVID-19-related expenses and activities associated with learning loss for students and has to be spent by Sept. 30, 2023.

The $5,676,832 in ESSER III funds needs to be spent on COVID-19-related expenses and activities associated with learning loss for students and has to be spent by Sept. 30, 2024.

“We were able to hire seven elementary teachers, six middle school, five high school, a new corporation speech teacher and a counselor,” Nauman said. “In addition, we were able to make 21 part-time instructional classroom assistants full time.”

He said with the additional staff, Seymour has been able to reduce class size, have more support for learning loss and offer more remedial activities.

Also, they offer an online school, OWL Tech, for students who select the remote learning platform, and through the funding, SCSC was able to hire five more OWL Tech teachers.

“These funds have been a blessing for students and staff of Seymour Community Schools,” Nauman said. “I hope this helps explain why we have been slower than most to spend the funds. There is a plan in place to use 100% of the funds. Each year adds some additional staff to help bridge the learning loss for our students.”

According to the ESSER GEER dashboard, Brownstown Central Community School Corp. has been allocated $2,711,319 and reimbursed $542,376 and has $2,168,943, or 80%, remaining.

Crothersville Community School Corp. was allocated $955,106 and has spent the most of its federal COVID-19 relief funds out of Jackson County’s four public school corporations. So far, it has been reimbursed $504,323 and has $490,783, or 49.3%, remaining.

Medora Community School Corp. was allocated $1,078,871 and reimbursed $242,909 and has $853,962, or 77.5%, remaining.

Tribune reporter Mitchell Banks contributed to this story.

On the Web 

The Indiana Department of Education statewide COVID-19 relief school spending dashboard can be found at in.gov/doe/grants/esser-geer-dashboard.