How Utah will spend $205 million to help students catch up after COVID-19

The state is focusing its efforts on children from colored communities and low-income households through a federal grant.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) McKenzie Jackson is teaching fifth grade at Lincoln Elementary School in South Salt Lake on Thursday, November 5, 2020. The state is now receiving $ 205 million to help with learning losses caused by the pandemic.

| July 7, 2021, 10:00 a.m.

To get students back on track after the pandemic, Utah will use federal funds to bolster its summer school and after-class offerings – with a special focus on helping children from underserved communities.

The state is expected to receive more than $ 205 million for the effort as part of a residual scholarship paid by the U.S. Department of Education.

“The impact of the pandemic has been profound,” said Utah Superintendent Sydnee Dickson. “But with that money, we can begin to re-accelerate student learning for those who are hardest hit.”

Funding to tackle the academic slide in COVID-19 was announced on Wednesday, with Utah joining the first cohort of six states and Washington, DC, whose plans are approved by the federal government. The latest subsidy is said to be aimed at the inequalities in education exposed by the pandemic, with each state outlining how it will respond to it.

In Utah, as elsewhere across the country, students who saw the biggest drops in grades and attendance were more likely to be of skin color or from low-income households, according to state data.

In the Salt Lake City school district, for example, more F-grades were reported during the pandemic in Title I schools located in areas with the highest levels of poverty than anywhere else. And in the Granite School District, most of those who failed that year were English learners and many refugee or new immigrant families.

The same gaps were found in every county across the state, Dickson said, across all genders, grades, and subjects.

The differences in access to education for these groups, she found, were exacerbated when classes were moved online. Many of these households include key workers, parents who have more than one job, older siblings who care for younger siblings, and families who have contracted the virus. Education has understandably been put on hold for some, Dickson said.

Utah plans to use the additional federal funding to cover the cost of strengthening its ongoing summer school programs first as well as “over the next few summers,” added Dickson. She acknowledged that it will likely take a few years to make up for any learning losses.

Efforts include encouraging more students to enroll and offer an intense curriculum to catch up with. The superintendent said there was not enough funding from the first round of allocations made under the American Rescue Plan to cover these and other initiatives needed to bring students up to speed. Utah received $ 410 million for the first time with the plan in March.

The money is also used for after-school tutoring, especially for kindergarten, first and second grade students who need help learning to read. The state noted an initial 14% drop in the number of first graders who had expected levels of literacy this fall after schools first closed in the spring.

School districts and documents here will apply to the state for a share of the funds in a so-called “competitive grant procedure”, with each individual submitting plans to solve the problem in his or her region.

Dickson said she wanted schools to prioritize the students who need help most – this could be academic or psychological support.

The state will also use some of the funds to study the effects of children, conduct research, and collect new data on grades, attendance, and test results.

“Ultimately,” said Dickson, “success is measured by knowing the impact COVID-19 has on each student.”

Dickson was selected as the state’s sole superintendent to speak at a press conference, alluding to how the Department of Education received the Utah proposal.

Other states plan to use the money to hire more mental health staff or tutors. The other plans approved on Wednesday came from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Texas, South Dakota, Arkansas and Washington, DC. Texas got the largest share at $ 4 billion and Washington DC the smallest at $ 128 million. The amount distributed depends on how many students a federal state has and how many are counted under Title I.

In a call to reporters, Maureen Tracey-Mooney, a special education assistant to President Joe Biden, said she viewed the funding as “a down payment for the future of this nation.”

“We know we won’t fix the problems caused by a one-time pandemic overnight,” she said. “We know we have to work to make our schools better than before.”

The Department of Education will continue to approve the plans of the states that have filed applications and will provide approximately $ 130 billion in total, including funding in March.

source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/how-utah-will-spend-205-million-to-help-students-catch-up-after-covid-19/