On Friday, the Wolf administration announced that Pennsylvania’s $2.2 billion share of federal ESSER II (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) emergency funding for public K-12 schools  will be allocated to school districts and charter schools based on the Title I formula. ESSER II funding is part of the federal Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 that was signed into law on December 27, 2020. ​

Title I is a federal program that provides funding based on the number of low income students schools educate.   States were required to distribute 90% of the ESSER II funding through Title I. Distributing all of the ESSER II funding through the Title I formula ensures that emergency relief will reach and support the students who have the greatest needs and stands in contrast to what happened with part of the ESSER I funding last year.​

Inadequate public education funding has been a longstanding and devastating problem in Pennsylvania, particularly in communities of color and areas of concentrated poverty. And students in profoundly underfunded school districts prior to the pandemic were hit the hardest by the COVID-19 school closures. These students were more likely to attend schools in old buildings with poor ventilation systems that could not support in-person learning during the pandemic. They were more likely to be in crowded classes, with less help from teachers, whether virtual or in-person, to meet their needs. Many students in poor districts also did not have school-issued computers like their peers in wealthier districts, and the list goes on and on and on.

Click HERE to find your school district’s preliminary allocation of federal emergency aid.

ESSER II funding may be used to pay for allowable expenditures under ESSER I and these additional uses:

• Addressing learning loss among students.
• Making school facility repairs and improvements to enable the operation of schools to reduce risk of virus transmission and exposure to environmental health hazards, and to support student health needs.
• Inspecting, testing, repairing and other projects to improve the air quality in school facilities.

This federal emergency aid will help prevent catastrophic cuts in our schools in the short term. It is lifeline for school districts that have experienced extraordinary and unexpected expenditures as a result of COVID-19 and that have both lost local revenue because of the COVID-19 economic downturn and face enormous increases in cyber charter school tuition costs.  

However, this is one-time finding intended to be spent on one-time expenses related to COVID-19. This funding is not a substitute for the additional recurring state funding necessary to ensure that ALL schools can meet their students’ needs.

We eagerly anticipate Governor Wolf’s budget address on Tuesday, February 2nd and look forward to kicking off advocacy season for the funding Pennsylvania’s public schools need and deserve.

PS: There is still time to register for the PA Schools Work webinar on Thursday, January 21 at 12:00 pm with the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials. They will roll out anew suite of tools on their Data Dive website including interactive data maps and graphic visualizations, to help advocates understand how state funding issues impact our own school districts.