Millions in federal aid going to district

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Preliminary workshop shows budget at $42.2 million

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More after-school tutorials and newer computers will be made available to Sulphur Springs ISD students as the district applied for over $11.5 million in federal funds available through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER), assistant superintendent Josh Williams reported at the school board meeting Tuesday.

“Essentially, we’ve been given some money,” Williams said. “We want to talk about our plan to spend the money for the benefit of the students of this school.”

There are two groups of money from ESSER: ESSER II and ESSER III. ESSER III makes up the majority of the amount at $8 million, and ESSER II makes up the re maining $3.5 million. The district will focus on appropriating two-thirds of the ESSER III funding, which comes out to $5.3 million.

There are three questions the district must answer before receiving the money: is the cost reasonable and necessary, does the use match the intent of the grant (mitigating the COVID impact on education) and is it allowable under guidelines set by the grant.

“You see everything from technology, money for tutorials, after-school programs, supplies to clean, upgrades to facility particularly to HVAC for clean air,” Williams said as to what was allowable.

What the district would spend the funds had community input through the District Advisory Committee, community surveys and the High School Advisory Committee. Williams said the use of the funds were not meant to decided by a single person or a small group.

“It’s a lot of money,” Williams said. “There are a lot of needs, and there is a lot of good work to do.”

Highlights include replacing computers at the SSHS campus, implementing after-school tutorials, making use of virtual tutors and paying for the district’s custodial services.

In other items, the board also held a short preliminary budget workshop to know they currently stand based on estimates. According to business manager Sherry McGraw, the budget currently stands at $42.2 in expenditures and $41.6 in revenue. The shortfall should close once extra state funding for CTE enrollment is accounted for.

Superintendent Michael Lamb also gave a presentation on STAAR results. This was the first year the district had testing solely online, and given the pandemic, high scores were not expected. Overall, that was proven correct for the younger classes. High school scores showed little change.

“I think these kids are a little more mature, a little more able to handle something like a pandemic,” Lamb said. “It may be a little less traumatic for them than, say, third through fifth, sixth, seventh grade.”

There is still plenty of work to do, but Lamb signed off the presentation with “we feel real good about going where we are now and going up from here.”