What does the loss of Covid relief funding mean for schools?

Maria Carrillo students working on computers (Maddie Smith/The Puma Prensa)

Written By: Maddie Smith, staff writer

When the world went into Lockdown in 2020, teachers and students suddenly needed a lot more, different, resources than before. In order to keep up with the new needs, like free computers for students and online programs, the federal and state governments issued several grants – sums of money given by a government to an organization for a specific purpose – to school districts in order to ensure that students could continue their education. Now, as the last of those grants expired on September 30 of this year, Santa Rosa City Schools is dealing with the aftermath of losing their additional funding. 

The extra funds were spent in many different ways, accounting for changes in safety protocols over the years. However, regardless of these smaller changes in spending, the money was consistently prioritizing technology and online resources, which allowed schools to develop a technology-reliant system that may need to be rethought with the loss of the money. 

Santa Rosa City Schools COVID-19 funding summary chart (California Department of Eduaction/The Puma Prensa)

At first, part of the money – that wasn’t going towards technology – was spent on teachers to keep sections of classes and jobs. Maria Carrillo Principal, Amy Wiese, explained: “When we went into that online year, kids didn’t want to join… the arts because… it’s really hard to do online… but the funding helped us maintain and keep those teachers.” Money was put towards keeping jobs until the programs were up and running again. 

Additionally, when schools were in that first year of online learning, teachers needed to be trained on the online programs they would be using, so money also went to Professional Development. “It also went towards P.D. [Professional Development] for teachers because everyone all of a sudden had to learn how to use Zoom, how to use Google Classrooms, how to use different software to help them teach,” Wiese said. 

After students came back in person, more of the money went towards keeping up with the newer safety standards. Margaret BradyLong, a Math teacher at Carrillo who follows the district budget specified: “Some of that money went to purchase… sanitary supplies, like the wipes for the tables, and the masks, and all that kind of [sanitary] stuff.” 

There was also a developing recognition of the importance of mental health as students dealt with psychological problems, so funding started to go in that direction too. “[The district] decided that all the school based therapists were an extra layer of support for students and so they took those out of Covid money and I think they took the Restorative out of Covid money,” said BradyLong. 

Funding shifted around to these different resources – from keeping teachers and P.D. to sanitation to social/emotional help – and was spent in huge chunks on technology. While all of these are extremely important aspects of functional educational systems, the loss of the funding that was paying for them means the district is now struggling to afford to keep up with all of them. 

Technology has been the one constant in district spending since they first received this funding, and it is going to be one of the most difficult resources to maintain. When school went online, the district had to find a way to give students the same opportunities using the technology, which was difficult because SRCS was never meant to provide a single resource to every single student – they weren’t one-to-one. When all students suddenly needed the same resources, the district had to adopt a one-to-one style with the Chromebooks. The Associate Superintendent of Business Services, Lisa August, explained: “SRCS was not a one-to-one district. When Covid hit, we had to figure out how to get devices into the hands of every student [but] we didn’t actually adopt a one to one [system].” This became a major issue with the loss of the additional Covid funding. 

With the loss of the extra money, it becomes less practical to continue to provide those same resources, which means that the district may not be able to keep up with that system of learning that it has put in place. Scott Wallach, a Carrillo Government and Macroeconomics teacher said, “I don’t know if in a few years I’ll be able to do much online, like on Google Classroom, anymore because I don’t know that I’ll be able to rely on kids to have Chromebooks.”

Education is underfunded and struggling to provide for their students. If districts aren’t thinking long term, they will continue to face issues with sustainability. “One of the hard things is that often when the federal government or states give grants to districts… often they are not long term… What results of that is that then districts spend a budget as if that money is always going to be there,” says Wallach. 

The Covid relief funding allowed schools to continue to provide quality education to its students in a time of struggle and uncertainty. By relying on it so much, SRCS has developed systems of learning that aren’t sustainable without that money, which will soon lead to even more conflict in trying to find a way to maintain them. August’s question sums up the new problem perfectly: 

“How do we make this work going forward and what do we have to give up to make it work?”