By Breeana Greenberg, Special to the Independent
The Laguna Beach Unified School District’s Board of Education unanimously passed a spending plan for COVID-19 relief funds at its meeting Thursday night.
The district expects to receive $1.7 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to help “to address students’ academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs” and bridge any opportunity gaps worsened by the pandemic.
“This is something that we’ve been building upon and not creating anything new, because we’ve been able to enhance the programs that we have and that’s the intention of these funds,” Assistant Supt. of Business Services Jeff Dixon said.
The District plans to spend a total of $734,240 on COVID mitigation efforts to continue safe, in-person learning. From this total, $110,349 will be spent on personal protective equipment, including masks, gloves, plastic barriers, hand sanitizers, and thermometers, as well as outdoor classroom furniture, temporary handwashing stations and PPE Storage Bins.
El Morro and Top of the World elementary schools will get modular classrooms with an operating cost of $133,200.
Laguna Beach High School and Thurston Middle School will also get $278,035 for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) equipment. The HVAC equipment will improve ventilation at the school sites. $212,656 will be used to purchase ultraviolet light disinfection systems to be installed in HVAC equipment.
The American Rescue Plan Act requires that 20% of relief funds are spent towards addressing the “academic impact of lost instructional time through the implementation of evidence-based interventions.” The District has allotted $341,860 for this extra academic support, from this sum $311,010 was earmarked for buying additional Chromebooks so every student has a school-provided device.
The Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) offers extended learning time through summer intervention and enrichment, and after-school academic help. Administrators hope smaller class sizes and paraeducator support will help students’ progress. The MTSS also allocates funds for mental health staff and at-home devices and internet accessibility.
“Our goal is to continue the work that we started really with that 18-month plan back last spring, and that led into the extended learning opportunity grant,” Assistant Supt. of Instructional Services Chad Mabery said.
The District offered a summer academy program for pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students for targeted grade level intervention and English learner support. The High School also offered a credit recovery program. Fifty-six high school students participated in the first semester of the credit recovery program and 70 students attended the second semester.
The District also offered a new LEAD or Learn, Enrich, Advance, Discover program which provides “enrichment and readiness classes designed by teachers.” 158 students attended the first week of the LEAD program and 186 students attended the second week.
“The level of detail that our staff goes to to see that this program is working or not working or where we want to make adjustments, these are really good growth numbers to see over four weeks in the summer, we continue to follow and monitor these students, as well as how we can improve it next year,” Mabery said.
For example, teachers saw a 100% increase in math skills and a 60% increase in reading comprehension over the four-week summer program in fourth graders.
“We’re excited about these results, but I don’t want to overemphasize them in a way that, like some kids … really struggled last year and so there was more opportunity for growth there,” Mabery said. “And that’s, that’s what we’re seeing in some of those grade levels. And so we’re excited about them, this was a good sign that some of that was working.”
The remaining relief funds will be used for upgrading public address and clock systems at El Morro and Top of the World elementary schools. Funds will also go towards hiring a temporary high school English teacher.
In other district business, the School Board voted unanimously to grant the Laguna Beach Unified Faculty Association, California School Employees Association, and managers a one-time bonus of 3.25% of their annual salary. This payment is in addition to the already agreed-upon 4% raise which the School Board approved on June 8.