School districts nationwide have come to rely on now-ending funding.

In 2020 and 2021, in response to the pandemic, Congress passed six relief bills to support businesses and local governments. Schools received around $190 billion, with the majority of that money being used for supporting students’ academic and social needs, as well as for school staffing.

Now, the money is running out and districts are trying to pressure Congress to pass more bills. The Council of Chief State School Officers, a professional association of public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education, recently gathered representatives from numerous education organizations to share their stories about how the money has helped students and what the impacts will be when the funding ends. They met with the Biden administration at the White House on March 22 to discuss goals, such as improvement of early literacy and addressing teacher shortages.. 

“We want to address the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of learning challenges,” Michigan state Superintendent of Education Dr. Michael Rice said in an interview with the White House. “The funds have helped us do this by hiring more teachers and aids, as well as refurbishing the curriculum.”

At a different conference also hosted at the White House, Ian Rosenblum, a former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, also discussed the effects of the relief funds.

“We’re seeing across the country the real impact of these funds on addressing things like HVAC systems that help support safe in-person instruction, on making sure there are enough teachers in the classroom, that there are more school counselors,” he said at a conference for the Council of Chief State School Officers.

While many people are in support of Congress passing more bills, others are skeptical of where the money is actually going.

“There’s a weird memory-holing of the fact [that] last spring Congress distributed $123 billion dollars to K-12 schools for COVID preparedness,” MSNBC host Chris Hayes wrote in a viral 2022 tweet. “What was that used for?”

This cynicism originally developed due to the mistrust in schools and continued later with the lag on districts’ reporting of where they put the funds to use. The federal government requires state governments and schools to report how the money is being spent in four broad categories: “operational continuity”, “meeting students’ academic needs” “meeting students’ social-emotional needs”, and “other.” Because of these categories and the criteria to meet them, a lot of money has been reported as being spent for the “other” category, leading to many people wondering what actually happened to it.

“We have to have some level of accountability,” Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health Ashish Jha said on a New York Times podcast in January 2022 on why schools should have stayed open through the pandemic. Jha emphasized that the public can’t simply “assume and expect that our district leaders or school leaders will take the billions of dollars that Congress has given them” and act responsibly without some accountability and reporting on the use of those funds.

Some argue that even if schools create new programs, they may not be helpful for students.

“Although spending plans reflect best intentions, the quality of the programs may vary substantially, ” Vanderbilt University professor Christopher Candelaria, who studied the impact of additional school funding, said.

When the money was first approved, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) urged schools to use the money well and then ask for more if they show that it is helpful for students’ success. Currently, Congress isn’t predicted to pass more relief funds, leaving schools to adjust and cut programs that don’t fit the budget. 

By Jada Jones