Scores of math and reading specialists, more arts classes in elementary schools and staffers dedicated to student mental health are among the St. Paul school district’s plans for spending $207 million in federal COVID-19 grants over the next three years.
The district on Wednesday released its proposed spending priorities for the latest and largest round of pandemic-related grants, which total $333.6 million since March 2020.
“St. Paul Public Schools has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve student outcomes with federal funding from the American Rescue Plan,” Superintendent Joe Gothard said in a news release.
“We believe the strategies we are proposing will help us reach our goals as a district, and we are committed to monitoring their progress and making necessary adjustments to ensure every dollar is being spent to equitably meet the needs of our students, families, staff and community at large.”
The plan was developed by a work group of 27 district employees with input from a family/community advisory group and surveys and forums with the public. The school board is expected to approve the plan next month before it’s submitted to the Minnesota Department of Education.
The public is invited to review and comment on the plan through Sept. 10 at the district’s website.
The district’s priorities for the money, which must be spent by Sept. 30, 2024, are to:
- Reopen schools safely
- Address unfinished learning by identifying individual students’ needs
- Create more equitable schools
- Support students’ and employees’ social-emotional needs by creating inclusive school and district cultures.
Of the $207 million, the district wants to spend $93 million on what it’s categorized as “high-quality education.”
That includes $24.5 million for schools to spend as they see fit; $23 million for math and reading teachers at K-8 schools; $17 million for elementary specialists in art, music, theater, foreign languages and technology; and $12 million each for tech support and upgrades and summer and after-school programs.
Parents for years have clamored for a more well-rounded elementary education, and Gothard has said he wants to improve access to non-core classes, which aren’t consistently offered throughout the district.
There’s also some money to implement standards-based grading, offer credit recovery in high schools and do more career exploration in middle and high schools. Experiments during the pandemic last year showed the district there may be a better way to grade students and get them back on track to graduate.
VENTILATION, PARTNERSHIPS
The district is targeting $67.6 million for safe schools, including $42.9 million for custodial and maintenance workers and upgrades to ventilation systems in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
There’s also money for more nurses and food service staff and bonuses for bus drivers, who are in short supply.
Community partnerships would get $10.1 million, including more contracted social workers and efforts to bring wraparound family support services into the schools. Another $8 million would pay for additional social workers and counselors, as well as social-emotional support activities.
Other highlights are support for special-education students and English language learners, changes to make curriculums more culturally relevant, and efforts to recruit and retain more teachers of color.
District leaders have said Black and American Indian students posted the worst grades last year, while Asian students and those learning English saw the greatest declines from their usual academic performance.
THIS SCHOOL YEAR
Separate from the $207 million to be spent in the coming years, St. Paul has committed $81.5 million in federal COVID-19 grants for the upcoming school year.
Individual schools are getting $27.8 million, most of which is being spent on additional staff. That includes $10.8 million for extra teachers to free up time for school-day collaboration and training and $7.2 million to hire one or two reading teachers for every elementary and middle school.
Another $33.5 million is going to districtwide support and administration, including $17.6 million for technology and $5.3 million for custodial services.
The final $20.2 million went to a variety of school support services programs.
REACTION
The school board heard a presentation earlier this month about the district’s priorities for the $207 million as the specific strategies were being finalized.
Gothard said then that the district was comparing notes with comparably sized districts across the country on how they were spending their grants.
After the presentation, some board members questioned why the district wasn’t more interested in teaching or reviewing concepts students may have missed during distance learning last year.
Research director Stacey Gray Akyea said research shows it’s better to move students ahead than to remediate.
Krista Kaput, research director with the education research and advocacy group EdAllies, has been studying ARP spending plans across the state. She said by email that St. Paul’s plan “has some good elements — including targeted student services, family services, and community partnerships — and it balances social-emotional learning with academics.
“But it’s missing some critical components for addressing learning loss: targeted tutoring and learning acceleration, when an educator starts with grade-level content and strategically weaves in key concepts from the earlier grade. ARP requires that 20 percent of district funds must be used to address learning loss, and these two research-backed tactics have shown to help address learning loss, particularly for low-income students and students of color, and should be a primary goal for this funding,” she said.