Washington schools tap ESSER funds to keep teachers

The Washington School District will use $500,000 of government allocations to schools for pandemic relief — called Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds — on salaries over the next several years after a unanimous school board vote last week.

Superintendent Willie Stone said the move was key to minimizing staff cuts after pandemic-linked enrollment drops led to budget concerns.

“If you do the math, we lost 80 students the first year, 80 times 7,000 is $560,000 we lost,” he said. “Over our five year budget, we’re talking about possibly cutting back seven to 10 teachers over a five-year time span. If we don’t do this, we’re going to have to ramp that up quite a bit, which will really hurt our students. This allows us to retain teachers to be able to provide services that our students need.”

Stone said the sum represented all 20% of the ESSER funds the district is required to spend on “educational catch-up,“ with the rest usable at the district’s discretion for other projects, like recent HVAC installments.

District Business Manager Jeff Dieleman said cuts would probably still be needed in the long run, but that the half-million dollar boost would make the process less jarring.

“It allows us to stretch it out and not be so aggressive in cutting back today,” he said. “We can take our time and do a couple here, next year a couple retirements, we’ll do a couple the year after. It just allows us to stretch out the cuts over time, rather than do it all upfront all at once, which is pretty painful.”

Dieleman said the move wouldn’t trade off with any other high-priority spending.

“The funds have to be used for something like that,” he said. “It’s not like we’re cutting back another item. We have to identify a way to use these funds, and this is what we’re asking the board to use.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com