Carrollton ESSER money expenditures
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By Carmen Ensinger
Carrollton School Board candidate Robert “Scott” Bryant has taken it upon himself to host two unofficial school board forums recently – one in Eldred at Kathy’s Corner on March 15 and one at the KC Hall in Carrollton on March 16 to give the voters the opportunity to meet the candidates.
While there are seven candidates running for four open seats on the board, only three were present at the meeting at the KC Hall and only around 25 to 30 people were in the audience. Candidates present were Bryant, Kari Manker and Keith Alan Graham. Candidates absent included incumbent Rodney Reif, Jeff Krumwiede, Amber Flowers and Aaron Mehrhoff.
One item brought up by the three candidates at the Carrollton School Board forum on Thursday night, was the fact that no one could find out what the roughly $1.5 million in ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) money the district received during the COVID pandemic was spent on.
A request was made to Carrollton Superintendent Mark Halwachs for this information and Halwachs gave not only a list of the major items on which the money was spent, but the entire budget breakdown on which every dollar was spent.
The largest expenditure was a new HVAC system at the grade school.
To improve air quality in the grade 5-8 wing, new heat pumps were installed to improve air flow with bipolar ionization units at a cost of $385,370. The same was done in the grade 1-4 wing at a cost of 167,483.
Also at the grade school, 11 unit vents were replaced, also to improve indoor air quality at a cost of $54,222.73 for a total cost of $358,264.
At the high school, service was performed on the HVAC system in the spring and fall of 2021 and 2022 at a total cost of $43,500 and 50 bipolar ionization units were installed at a cost of $40,153.
All in all, improving the air quality at the schools, and getting a new heating and cooling system at the grade school during the height of the pandemic cost $994,670, which, in essence, is what the funds were meant to be used for – to prevent the spread of COVID.
Other expenditures of the money, which were also COVID-related, albeit in a round-about way, were the purchase of new Chromebooks. Students spent months at home on remote learning so the district used funds to purchase 180 Chromebooks and covers at a cost of $46,525 during one phase of funding and another 100 later on at a cost of $26,011.
Another subject brought up during the candidate forum was a lack of tutoring provided by the district. Yet thousands of dollars of ESSER funds were devoted to tutoring and enrichment programs. In fact, one of the stipulations of the ESSER funding was that 20 percent be used to address learning loss through evidence-based interventions.
A total of $57,500 was allotted for salaries for teachers for before and after school tutoring programs and a summer enrichment program for the grade school for both the grade and high school. This included $20,000 of a high school math teacher’s salary during the 2021-22 school year to help with learning loss.
Each of the 22 grade school classrooms were allotted $500 each to purchase supplies for a reading library or math manipulatives for their classrooms to improve reading comprehension. A total of 19 high school teachers were allotted $500 per teacher to spend on improving reading comprehension skills or math computation skills.
This also included supplemental supplies for both the grade school and high school, including math, science and ELA materials for classroom activities to improve student achievement. Total cost of $77,874.
Just over $23,000 was spent for 28 students to take the Regional Office of Education Summer School for credit recovery (14 in 2021 and 14 in 2022).
One question that has been asked is why the ESSER money wasn’t used to give teacher’s raises. The answer to that is simple. Because the ESSER money is a “one-time deal”. How would the district maintain the salaries in the coming years since the revenue stream would be gone.
Each round of ESSER funds has a specific deadline for use. The first round of funding expired on Sept. 30, 2022. The second round will expire on Sept. 30 of 2023 and the third round on Sept. 30, 2024. ESSER funds must be liquidated within 120 calendar days after the end of the availability period.
Anyone who would like to see the itemized list can contact the district office.
Actually, the forum started by Bryant sharing a rumor that National Honor Society students were not going to be allowed to wear their sashes during graduation.
“I have contacted my lawyer about this and that would be up to the school board whether they can or can’t wear them,” he said. “I think that there is enough going on in this community right now and something tells me that they (school board) are going to side with whatever decision (by Superintendent) is made and these kids that worked their tails off all their middle and high school careers to be able to get these honors will not be able to wear the stuff they earned because somebody might hurt someone else’s feelings.”
Halwachs was asked if there was any validity to this rumor. He said absolutely not and he didn’t know where they would get this idea from.
Another fallacy mentioned was that one of the security doors had been broken for approximately four months and anyone could just walk into the school.
Again, Halwachs said this was not true.
“The security doors at the high school didn’t work part of one day when the power was off, but that was it,” Halwachs said. “I don’t know why they would think our security doors have been out of commission for four months when that simply isn’t true. All they have to do is come and try to get in them to test it out.”
Upon further investigation, it is another district who is having issues with their security doors – not Carrollton.
