Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of articles on how area localities have spent their allotted American Rescue Plan Act funds, which must be allocated by Dec. 31 of this year and spent by the end of 2026.

 

School systems have an earlier deadline than local governments to spend their share of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic relief package Congress passed in 2021.

The Smithfield Times, based on public records and email interviews, has compiled an overview of how Isle of Wight County, its school system, and the towns of Smithfield and Windsor spent their ARPA allocations and what remains available to date. Breakdowns of how Smithfield and Isle of Wight County spent their ARPA funds were published in the July 24 and July 31 print editions, respectively, and online.

 

Isle of Wight County Schools

Allocated: $4.7 million

Unspent: $5,768

 

ARPA included a third round of Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief, or ESSER, funding that had begun in 2020 with the passage of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act. Of the $122 billion in ESSER III funds allotted to states to help them reopen their schools, IWCS received $4.7 million.

The deadline to use ESSER I and II funds allotted under CARES lapsed in 2022 and 2023, respectively. School divisions have until Sept. 30 this year to spend any remaining ESSER III funds.

Local governments, by comparison, have until Dec. 31 to obligate any remaining funds and through the end of 2026 to spend them.

IWCS had a remaining balance of $5,786 in ESSER III funds as of July 11, which it expects to spend by Sept. 30, according to division spokeswoman Lynn Briggs.

 

Learning loss remediation

Isle of Wight put forward a preliminary spending plan for its ESSER III funds on July 12, 2021, which earmarked $3.6 million for expenses tied to learning loss, including the purchase of student laptops, interactive classroom whiteboards and salaries and benefits for clinic assistants and instructional assistants.

Virginia’s 2022-24 state budget included ARPA-funded $1,000 one-time bonuses for “standards of quality” positions, or those deemed the mandatory minimum number of employees each division must have based on enrollment. Isle of Wight, like most school divisions, employs more than the minimum, and at a higher salary, than what gets funded with SOQ state dollars. Isle of Wight’s School board voted in December 2022 to approve $304,660 in ESSER III funds to cover the cost of providing $1,000 bonuses to its non-SOQ employees.

The School Board then voted in February of last year to combine $108,813 in ESSER funds with nearly $300,000 in Title 1 federal funding for students from lower-income families, to purchase 143 interactive whiteboards at Carrsville, Hardy and Windsor elementary schools, Smithfield and Windsor high schools and Smithfield and Georgie D. Tyler middle schools.

In April of last year, the School Board voted to purchase 500 MacBook Air laptops and a four-year AppleCare service plan at $504,000 using ESSER funds to continue a one-to-one student-to-device ratio at all grade levels.

Another $37,000 in ESSER III funds went toward the cost of erecting a 1,700-square-foot modular classroom building outside Carrsville Elementary in the southern end of the county. 

 

HVAC upgrades and school buses

IWCS spent another $378,509 of its ESSER III money on boiler repairs. Georgie Tyler Middle School, at $201,794, and Windsor Elementary, at $133,927, accounted for the majority, while Carrollton Elementary received $16,690 and Windsor High School received the remaining $26,097.

Deputy Superintendent Christopher Coleman told the School Board and county supervisors at a joint September 2023 meeting that IWCS had received $1.1 million in ARPA  funds for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning work, and ended up spending it on replacing leaky HVAC pipes at Carrollton Elementary in 2022.

According to Briggs, the $1.1 million spent on Carrollton’s pipes came from a pool of ARPA money earmarked specifically for HVAC projects, which is separate from the ESSER III funds the division received.

Temperature control problems in the circa-1993 school have persisted since the 2022 work. Isle of Wight County supervisors have included an additional $7.4 million in local taxpayer dollars in the county’s 2024-25 capital improvements budget for a full replacement of Carrollton’s HVAC system.

The 2021 preliminary ARPA spending didn’t originally include $255,718, which Briggs said purchased two school buses.

According to division officials, roughly a third of the division’s 65 buses were at or nearing the 15-year lifespan or 300,000-mile threshold when it’s customary to begin looking at replacements as of 2023. The division’s 2024-25 budget calls for the purchase of an additional five buses with local dollars, down from 20 Superintendent Theo Cramer had initially requested.