(The Center Square) – Only about a fifth of the total pandemic relief spending in fiscal year 2023 went directly to addressing the lost time in school due to government-mandated COVID-19 school closures, a federal report says.
The U.S. Department of Education report reveals how school districts spent billions of federal pandemic relief dollars appropriated by Congress to help the nation’s children recover from learning losses.
School districts prioritized spending to address students’ academic, social and emotional needs, as well as interventions for lost instruction due to COVID-19 closures, the Education Department said.
The agency’s fiscal year 2023 annual performance report accounts for how much of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, or ESSER, were spent. The report said $23 billion was spent on students’ academic, social and emotional needs.
Districts spent $14.8 billion on operational continuity, $10 billion on physical health and safety, and $1.5 billion on mental health supports, for a total of over $49.3 billion in ESSER funds, the report said.
“Over the course of FY 2023, states spent $23 billion on meeting students’ academic, social, and emotional needs,” the report reads.
The analysis said local education agencies, known as LEAs, “spent more than $11 billion in ARP ESSER funding towards activities and interventions to address lost instructional time.”
States spent just $1 billion in the same fiscal year on tutoring.
The report also says federal funds allowed districts to hire teachers and school personnel.
“In FY 2023, nearly half of the ESSER funds expended by LEAs, totaling over $24 billion, supported salaries and benefits for educators and other LEA personnel,” the report reads. “Thanks in part to these investments, there are now more people working in America’s schools than at any time in the last decade.
“As of October 2024, local public schools have added 643,000 jobs since 2021, including 43% more social workers and 23% more nurses working in America’s schools to meet the needs of all students.”
While the number of jobs has increased in schools, the number of students enrolled in public schools has dropped since the beginning of the pandemic. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there was a 2.6% drop in enrollment between the fall of 2020 and the fall of 2022.
The report says schools also upgraded buildings with the influx of federal money.
“When faced with the Herculean task of reopening all schools for safe in-person instruction during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, many LEAs chose to spend ESSER funding on school infrastructure and other capital investments to help ensure that students and staff could remain healthy and safe during in-person instruction,” the report reads.
That included upgrades like installing new heating and air conditioning systems or windows, as well as adding classrooms and building new bathrooms.
• This story first published at Chalkboard News which, like The Center Square, is published by the Franklin News Foundation