Some administrators are using money from their regular budget to cover these costs while shifting COVID relief aid to areas such as ventilation or technology more clearly tied to pandemic recovery.īoston Public Schools expects to spend more than $10 million on 100 specialists, with schools determining what sort of academic support they need. In most cases, these positions appear to be new hires, but some districts may be shifting existing staff into new roles and using federal dollars to pay them. The plans include money for academic specialists who can coach students, typically in math or reading (mentioned by 39 of the 100 largest districts), as well as additional classroom teachers for smaller class sizes, and teachers or staff to carry out new or expanded initiatives. Our national analysis, using information compiled by the data services firm Burbio, found that about 60% of districts and charter organizations plan to use federal relief to hire new teachers or pay current staffers more to expand instruction. While districts are investing heavily in interventions such as summer and afterschool programs and tutoring to address learning loss, especially for traditionally underserved students, a major priority has been adding instructional staff. We found seven significant spending trends. The challenges presented by the scale of the federal funding and the short window for spending it also emerged from the analysis. The result is a comprehensive picture of state and local spending on the nation’s more than 3 million-member teaching force - including new hires, innovative ways to leverage top teachers, an emerging commitment to extra pay for longer hours and bonuses that break with traditional pay schedules to combat staff shortages. And we examined additional documents and conducted interviews to gauge how the nation’s 100 largest districts plan to reinforce their teaching ranks with the American Rescue Plan’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund (ESSER III). To understand state and local policymakers’ strategies for bolstering teaching resources in the wake of the pandemic, FutureEd analyzed the COVID relief spending plans of 5,000 districts and charter organizations, representing 74% of the nation’s public school students. In many places, the federal support comes on top of substantial state and local teacher investments. Local education agencies are on pace to spend as much as $20 billion on instructional staff under the American Rescue Plan. In rural enclaves and city centers, in red states and blue, school districts share the same top priority for federal COVID relief aid: spending on teachers and other staff who can help students recover from the pandemic, academically and emotionally. This analysis is adapted from a new FutureEd report, “ Educators and ESSER: How Pandemic Spending is Reshaping the Teaching Profession.” Keep The 74 free for everyone with a generous donation.

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