The Washington Community School Board approved using funds from the third round of federal emergency COVID-19 relief to help retain their current teacher roster during their April meeting.

Superintendent Willie Stone explained that the state requires 20% of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief III Fund to address learning loss, which amounts to around $500,000 for the district. The district lost around 80 enrolled students in the first year of the pandemic, which amounts to around $560,000 in per-pupil funds lost, “As you know, over a five-year budget we’re talking about possibly cutting back seven to 10 teachers over a five year time span. If we don’t do this, we are going to have to ramp that up quite a bit which will really hurt our students.”

Stone said a teacher costs the district around $55,000 annually, and using the ESSER funds towards teacher retention will help them avoid making teacher cuts in the near future. The district is receiving nearly $2.02 million in ESSER III funds, and they previously received nearly $1.1 million for ESSER II, $263,260 for ESSER I, and $76,800 from the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund. The district is using $3.1 million of these total funds for the high school HVAC project beginning this May.