How are Nebraska school districts spending federal COVID relief? | Nebraska

Districts have taken advantage by planning purchases they have never been able to before. The following are examples of how Nebraska schools are spending the money:

Robert Moore, assistant superintendent of the Bellevue Public Schools, isn’t surprised that districts are buying curriculum.

During normal times, curriculum is “an enormous purchase for most districts,” he said.

His district plans to spend $1.84 million of its $6.3 million federal allotment on curriculum, primarily for English language arts and math.

That was a logical decision, he said, because the state just updated English language arts standards and will do the same for math this year.

The Gretna Public Schools are using all of their allotment of more than $1 million to update the district’s reading curriculum for kindergarten through sixth grade.

The decision was an easy one and will address learning loss, Superintendent Rich Beran said.

“We could have done summer school, we could have done all these things, but it was just easier. ‘Here, let’s do this.’ Boom. It’s straightforward, they approve it quick,” he said. “It just made sense to do that.”

More than a dozen districts indicated interest in buying a social-emotional curriculum.

Several districts mentioned a curriculum called Second Step, a product of a Seattle nonprofit called Committee for Children.

Creighton Public Schools bought the curriculum for kindergarten through fifth-grade students.

Superintendent Josh Weber said Second Step curriculum addresses various topics including recognizing bullying and harassment, and how to stand up to those things, while managing emotions and reducing stress.

“About 20 minutes once a week they would have the opportunity to go through some of these lessons with our guidance counselor,” he said.

At the high school level, Creighton officials are looking to host speakers “to talk about school climate and culture and how do we improve that, and how do we create more ownership for students within our school,” he said.

The Nebraska Department of Education states on its website that social and emotional learning “is an integral part of education and human development.” It helps kids “to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals” and it “advances educational equity and excellence.”

In recent years social-emotional learning has come under fire from some conservatives, who say it is a vehicle for bringing progressive ideas about sex and race into the classroom.

About 20% of districts have stated they want to use the money to address mental health issues for both students and staff.

Many are hiring more licensed mental health practitioners to allow more students to receive therapy, or giving existing staff more hours to help students.

Winnebago Public Schools are directing the majority of their federal dollars, along with special building funds, to build a facility that houses therapists, truancy officers and other mental health services.

Superintendent Dan Fehringer said the district already has some therapists, but it needs more room to meet everyone’s needs.

“If the children are not social emotionally ready, it doesn’t matter what curriculum you have,” Fehringer said. “We already had a high need for mental health services and it continues to be a high need even more so after the pandemic.”

Douglas County West Community Schools Superintendent Melissa Poloncic said a survey of her district’s staff and parents indicated mental health as a high priority.

The district is using ESSER III money to partner with Region 6 Behavioral Health Care to get therapists into schools to serve kids and families.

Therapists from CHI will be available on campus probably once a week, Poloncic said.

District officials were interested in addressing children’s mental health before the pandemic, but the last two years highlighted the need, she said.

“I think we’re seeing what was lost in the pandemic, for kids and families, was the social aspect,” Poloncic said.

Larger school districts are also using the money in creative ways to help address mental health concerns. The Omaha Public Schools are dedicating $2.5 million to employee wellness programs and the Grand Island Public Schools are establishing teletherapy services for students.

At least 60 districts are planning to hire staff to help in the classroom and with school operations, including teachers, paraprofessionals, custodians and nutrition service employees.

The main problem with hiring staff with ESSER money is that new employee salaries will remain an ongoing expense after the spending deadline, which ranges from the end of this year to 2024 for all three rounds.

Hastings Public Schools are planning to spend more than $600,000 to hire teachers to reduce classroom sizes, especially at the highest poverty schools, Superintendent Jeff Schneider said.

Schneider said a lot of the funding in ESSER III is continuing the employment of staff hired in the previous two rounds. The future for those staff still remains uncertain — Schneider said he won’t know how many employees the district will be able to keep until he knows how much state aid Hastings will receive in 2024.

“We absolutely tried to do this responsibly, so we didn’t fall off a cliff after the 2023-24 school year, but I think we will have to make adjustments,” he said.

Summerland Public Schools have a similar spending plan for hiring staff, but the district will absorb the positions into its budget once the federal money runs out. Superintendent Kyle Finke said the district added an instructional coach and paraprofessionals who have been key to helping students get back on track.

“We will have to go about finding it within our budget to keep them,” he said. “I don’t see us not hiring these staff members back.”

More than 4 in 10 districts plan to upgrade heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems to improve air quality for kids and teachers.

High demand and supply chain issues are delaying some projects.

Creek Valley Public Schools used the federal money to help pay for HVAC units with virus-killing technology. Its ESSER III allocation was about $331,000.

The district went with two types of systems: one with bipolar ionization in 13 classrooms, the other with UV-C lamps in the library, gym and a couple of classrooms.

For the first time, the gym now has air conditioning, said Pat Ningen, Creek Valley superintendent.

The new classroom units are quieter than the water-based system of the late 1980s and early 1990s that they replaced, he said.

“You could hear them when you went into the classroom,” he said. “Now you can’t really hear much.”

Trevor Drebla, estimator and project manager for Johnson’s Plumbing and Heating of Norfolk, said demand for HVAC units has contributed to “unprecedented” wait times for delivery.

For some rooftop units, the wait can be 32 weeks, he said.

In addition, manufacturers have had trouble getting some materials, especially computer chips, he said.

“It’s kind of the perfect storm where we’ve got a huge demand right now and then the backlogged supply, and so it’s coming to a head and it’s starting to hurt a little bit.”

In the Pawnee City Public Schools, officials originally planned to spend 80% of their $546,762 on HVAC and building improvements.

They had to reconsider when the bid for the air quality improvement project came in twice the cost estimate, Superintendent Brian Rottinghaus said.

“We will likely be revisiting and updating in the near future because the major air-quality improvement project will not now be able to be done due to the bid coming in far too high,” he said.

More than a third of districts are planning to purchase more technology — anything from laptops, desktops and iPads to more unique devices to help learning.

Malcolm Public Schools will be buying classroom audio distribution equipment this summer, said Superintendent Ryan Terwilliger. Teachers will wear a device that is similar to a microphone around their neck and it will transmit sound throughout the room.

“It’s interesting tech. It sounds like the teacher is right next to you,” he said. “We have some kids who have hearing issues so it will be good for them. The research has shown it improves performance for all kids.”

Students who are home sick will still be able to be present during a classroom lesson with new technology at Winside Public Schools.

Superintendent Andrew Offner said the district is planning to purchase two robots, for about $4,500 each, that students will be able to take control of from their laptops at home in order to learn remotely.

The student, teacher and peers will be able to see each other through a video-chat like screen. The student operating the robot will also be able to move around the classroom and talk to other people.

Cedar Bluffs Public Schools plan to expand the school cafeteria and kitchen, with a dual aim: shortening the lunch lines and spacing out students to improve social distancing, Superintendent Harlan Ptomey said.

The project has been slowed by supply chain issues, including getting metal for the structure, he said.

“The last building we did I think we did it for under $140 to $150 a square foot price,” Ptomey said. “They’re estimating like $250 per square foot price this year. It’s like, Jiminy Christmas.”

During the worst of the pandemic, students were eating in classrooms and hallways to social distance, he said.

Bond issues for projects like this have been a tough sell with voters, especially because half of the students live outside the district, he said.

“We’ve known a long time ago that there’s no way we pass a bond, so we’ve always tried to be creative,” he said.

In Centura Public Schools, officials are taking aim at the high school bathrooms.

The plan is to remodel the space, replace original out-of-date and broken fixtures, add more stalls for the girls and bring the facilities into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The bathrooms are in such bad shape that kids avoid using them, Superintendent Ryan Ruhl said.

“We were trying to find a way to attack it right away, because our kids were walking further down the hallway to use different bathrooms because it was getting that bad,” Ruhl said.

If not for the federal money, the project would probably have required a bond issue, he said.

The new bathrooms will have automatic touchless toilets and faucets, which Ruhl said would improve sanitation and prevent the spread of germs.

The Grand Island Public Schools are also spending about half of their $18 million in funding to renovate 10 schools and purchase technology. Many of the construction projects are focused on building more secure building entrances.

Some districts have plans to use the money for more unique allocations.

Walthill Public Schools are looking to train all staff in the National Incident Management System, which are practices for school emergency management. The district also wants to buy safety signs and materials, plus host mock exercises through the “I Love U Guys” Foundation, which helps schools work on response protocols.

The Bellevue Public Schools plan to spend $300,000 as “seed money” to explore the feasibility, cost and possible curriculum for a new virtual school.

According to Moore, the assistant superintendent, the school could potentially serve as an alternative for some families but also help the district prepare to respond to future school closures.

“The lessons that we might learn from doing this could help us if we ever have another pandemic, if we ever have another situation where we’re out, so we can be more effective in taking care of all of our kids,” Moore said.