At Tuesday's webinar, key officials will discuss where the nearly $640,000,000 in ESSER funds were distributed throughout Delaware's schools.

Webinar to focus on where COVID education money went

Jarek RutzDelaware Live, Education, Headlines

At Tuesday's webinar, key officials will discuss where the nearly $640,000,000 in ESSER funds were distributed throughout Delaware's schools.

At Tuesday’s webinar, key officials will discuss where the nearly $640,000,000 in ESSER funds were distributed throughout Delaware’s schools.

First State Educate will host a school funding webinar Tuesday to discuss where the hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 education relief funds went. 

The federal government allocated $122 billion amongst the states in K-12 pandemic funds, and First State Educate wants the community to know where the money is going.

Delaware received a total of $637,239,246 across three rounds of relief funding.

The money was included in the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER Fund. 

The webinar comes just eight days after the state published more detailed data on where the money was spent, broken down by district, and by categories like how much was allocated to mental health and learning loss. 

“The webinar is timely and relevant, and people in the community should watch to gain that transparency of exactly where our school districts have done with the millions of dollars in relief funds” said Liz Parlett Butcher, communications director at First State Educate.

The first of a 2-part webinar series on COVID relief funds for schools will be hosted by First State Educate Tuesday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The first of a 2-part webinar series on COVID relief funds for schools will be hosted by First State Educate Tuesday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

To read the ESSER Financial Transparency Report, click here. There are detailed instructions on how to navigate through the report here.

The webinar, called “Where is the COVID EDUCATION money now,” will feature Delaware Secretary of Education Mark Holodick and Colonial School District superintendent Jeff Menzer. 

Related: Colonial’s dropout prevention program shows impressive results

“Nobody has taken this data in the state and broken it down by district level in a way that members of the community are able to understand where the relief funding has gone in their respective school districts,” said Butcher. “We hope these webinars enable parents and caregivers to become better equipped with the knowledge they need to become better advocates for their children.”

Tuesday’s webinar is the first of two. The second will be held Sept. 27 at 9:30 a.m. and will feature Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds, vice president of policy at ExcelinEd, a national education advocacy group, and Cara Candal, managing director of policy at the ExcelinEd. 

To register for Tuesday’s 4 p.m. webinar, click here.

The event will also be livestreamed on First State Educate’s Facebook page.

 

 

Jarek Rutz can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at (215) 450-9982. Follow him on Twitter @jarekrutz and on LinkedIn.

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