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Washington school districts received over $2.6 billion in federal COVID relief funds and have spent $2.5 billion so far, according to September data from the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Like all other states, Washington received funds through three packages, known as ESSER I, II and III. ESSER stands for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, and the combined total for schools nationwide is nearly $200 billion.
The deadline for districts to determine how to spend the last of the money passed on Sept. 24, but districts do not have to actually spend the funds until Nov. 15. Washington is No. 1 in the country for spend-down rates, said Katy Payne, spokesperson for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
“While most other states are seeking extensions from the federal government to spend the funds past the deadline…we have been clear with our districts to spend their funds down in a timely manner, and they have,” Payne said in an email.
Most states working with districts to request extensions are directing money toward facility costs, which aren’t necessarily important for helping kids recover from COVID learning loss, said Marguerite Roza, who heads Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, a research center focused on education finance.
“I’m not sure that would have made a big difference either way,” Roza said.
The Washington school districts that received the most funding overall include Seattle, Spokane and Tacoma public schools. However, the districts that received the most funding when broken down by dollars per student include Tukwila, Yakima and Highline, according to a 2021 analysis from the Seattle Times.
That’s because the funds were allocated using a formula intended to prioritize those with large low-income populations. Some districts, as a result, received nothing at all. The state also received ESSER funds — about an additional $279.5 million. That money went to initiatives to support learning recovery, student mental health, promote student reengagement and recruitment and retention of teachers with diverse backgrounds.
Roza said that Washington could have done a better job using ESSER funds for learning recovery. Other states, she said, pushed harder to ensure funds went to math and reading recovery, whereas Washington officials directed districts to focus on sustaining current operations and backfilling budget gaps, in part to ensure school staff didn’t lose their jobs.
“You saw state ed chiefs [outside Washington] really carefully scrutinize every plan that a district submitted and send some back and say, ‘No, I’d rather see you do more for your low achievers or your English language learners,’” Roza said.
Washington districts spent the majority of their ESSER dollars on the category of “teaching,” which would include expenses like hiring teacher’s aides, extending contracts for teachers, and afterschool programming staff.
“It was a missed opportunity to not try to leverage the ESSER funds to get kids back on track in math and reading,” Roza said, adding that her research center has seen evidence that states that were more aggressive on reading recovery, in particular, are “already fully recovered from their COVID losses.”
The idea behind using funding to maintain current operations, said Ben Rarick, director of finance and operations at Tumwater School District, was to keep school systems intact with the assumption that enrollment would return to pre-pandemic numbers once schools reopened.
“A lot of districts used money to maintain programs so they’d be ready for that day,” Rarick said.
But that day never happened: Enrollment never fully rebounded for many districts. With the focus on sustaining operations, Rarick said some districts with deeper pockets may have been able to use funds to focus on academic programs, like his district, whereas others may have had to use “every last dollar of ESSER money just to keep the staff they had.”
“I think that districts made a very good faith effort to implement high value programs for kids,” Rarick said. “I don’t place the blame on OSPI, I don’t place the blame on any individual district. It was really very specific to the circumstances of every district.”
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction said that maintaining staff and programming was part of supporting students.
“You aren’t able to eliminate a teaching position because you had four students unenroll,” Payne said in an email. “You still need the teacher, the supplies, the support staff, the principal, the school bus.”
Payne also pointed out that Washington received less money than other states, which meant the funds “simply weren’t a big game-changer like they were in southern states.”
“That’s why it’s tough to make assumptions or assertions about how districts could have spent their funds ‘better,’” Payne said.
“How is it not focusing on academic recovery and acceleration to hire more [paraeducators] (who often lead tutoring programs in schools), start new before and afterschool learning programs, extend teachers’ working hours to support more students, and more?” Payne added.