Parents attending a Coppell ISD school board meeting on Monday urged the district to spend remaining federal dollars on various programs, including additional counselors, teachers, or support staff, and praised the district for its use of COVID-19 relief funds last year.
More than 20 district residents crowded inside the meeting at South Denton Road for the public hearing, which was held to solicit feedback on how to best utilize COVID-19 relief grants for education.
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds are federal grants of taxpayer money issued to states to combat the learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The district has yet to use roughly $1.1 million, or 26%, of the funds it received.
District resident Julie Albright spoke in favor of using the money to hire more support staff to mitigate barriers to learning, noting that things like hunger and mental health issues can distract students from performing their best.
“If the resolution of barriers to learning falls only to the classroom teachers without additional resources, it can slow the pace of learning for all students,” said Albright, explaining that giving additional resources such as counselors and school aides would allow teachers to focus on teaching.
“Today, I ask the school board to use the feedback our community gave in the past to support how the future ESSER funds are spent,” she continued.
According to an infographic displayed at the board meeting representing ESSER funds spent by Coppell ISD since March 2020, 39% of the funds were dedicated to teacher retention — approximately $1.7 million. About $1 million, 23%, was for supplies and materials. Other funds were allocated toward mental health services and supplemental after-school programs.
Robyn Webb, director of federal and state programs at Coppell ISD, said the executive members of the school board would likely decide on how to use the remaining funds in October.
“We have a comprehensive working plan to holistically tackle our plan,” Webb said during the meeting, stressing that feedback from the community was important, referencing a survey last year which helped the district determine how to use funds to address learning loss.
“Over 1,100 responses indicated that stakeholders felt that the district’s top priorities for use of ESSER funds were addressing learning loss by meeting the comprehensive needs of students and planning and implementing activities related to supplemental and after-school programs and summer learning,” Webb said.
The funds have to be spent by August 31 of next year.
A minimum of 20% of the grant must be set aside to combat learning loss due to federal requirements. However, school districts can spend the rest of the taxpayer money on a diverse set of expenses such as HVACs, buses, and other types of fixed-asset expenditures.
Webb claimed that 62.5% of the funds were used to address learning.
Other districts have used funds to hire additional staff, such as Round Rock ISD, according to Community Impact.
For its part, Dallas ISD plans on spending a total of $784.6 million in ESSER grants on students’ “physical, mental, and emotional health” and the district’s so-called “equitable access to learning & enrichment” strategy. Most of the taxpayer money, however, will be going towards combatting pandemic learning loss.
Despite the massive influx of funding in recent years, Dallas ISD continues to perform poorly in several regards.
For instance, only 41% of students were “at grade level or above” when they took the STAAR test in 2022. Additionally, nearly 20% of the district’s graduating class of 2021 did not graduate on time, either dropping out or taking longer to receive their diploma.
On the other hand, Coppell ISD seems to be excelling in comparison. Its STAAR scores, released earlier this year, show that 78% of its students are meeting grade level or above. Additionally, it clocked an on-time graduation rate of 99.6% in 2021.