School district uses COVID relief funds to address learning loss

Dec. 3—MOULTRIE, Ga. — Over $43 million in COVID relief funds were used to address "learning loss" within local schools, Colquitt County School District officials said Friday.

According to a recent Capitol Beat article, Georgia schools have used nearly 90% of $6 billion in federal COVID relief funds that were distributed to districts across the state since 2020.

"The federal funding did not come with the usual regulatory restrictions, providing districts with flexibility to use the money to address local needs," the article reads.

Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Jones of the Colquitt County School District said the funds were given in three "rounds." Each distribution round was referred to in different terms, he said.

The first round of funds was referred to as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) or Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER I). The district received a total of $2,937,613 in March 2020.

The following round called ESSER II totaled $12,498,326 and was received in December 2020. The final round was ESSER III or the American Recovery Plan (ARP) totaled $28,091,498 and was received in March 2021, documents shared by the CCSD state.

Jones and other Colquitt County School District leaders said addressing learning loss, through academics and technology, was their main priority when spending the funds.

The CCSD, along with all school districts across the state, has repeatedly experienced several interruptions to its "continuity of learning" such as school closures due to COVID outbreaks, distanced learning and frequent quarantines due to the pandemic.

Those breaks stifled schools' required attendance and posed students with a higher risk of learning loss.

Academically, the district used those funds to purchase a new reading curriculum and an upcoming math curriculum and to operate summer school, Dr. Marni Kirkland, the CCSD assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said.

The district also focused on updating software and servers to boost technological capacity. They also purchased a Kloud12 Camera System that serves both instructional and safety purposes.

Jones said teachers can record approximately 10 to 20 minutes of a class session for students who've missed a day of class or who might need a refresher on course materials.

Not all teachers are currently using the system, but they do have the capability to use it.

CCSD Superintendent Ben Wiggins explained the safety component of the camera system.

"Now our police department and sheriff's office has access, if needed in an emergency, to be able to access all the cameras in every school, whether it's a hallway [or a] classroom," Wiggins said. "That's just another enhanced safety security measure."

Instructional display panels, servers, IPads, hovercams and desktop computers for on-demand distance learning and increased instructional use cost $4,194,824.

The school system also updated its Chromebook fleet and purchased multiple backup servers for facilities in the event the district lost its data one day.

The Transportation Department added 15 new buses to its fleet costing $942,000.

"Everything, even the stuff that I'm not talking about, really is learning loss," Kirkland explained. "Because without the buses, without the Chromebooks when we were out of school, or if we ever had an emergency, we got to have all that. So it's really all learning, to me, it feels like supporting a learning environment if it changes on a dime."

Wiggins agreed saying, "The intent when DOE distributed these funds was to prepare for anything dealing with COVID. You have to be ready in case that wave comes and you have to go into quarantine. We've got to have the stuff in place, and set up the system to support all this technology and instructional programs to be able to function."

Kirkland concluded, "The goal for the state was that it cannot happen to that degree again."