Schools confront COVID learning loss—with federal help

Across the nation for much of the past 18 months, educators have wrestled with the questions: How much learning would be lost amid the pandemic? And what would be the best ways to get students who slipped along the way back on track?

As the new academic year begins this week in Jefferson County, local teachers and administrators are considering those questions more urgently—not because they’re new, but because they have new federal funding in hand to support their responses.

Jefferson High School is slated to receive about $520,000 total over three rounds from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund, aimed at helping districts reopen and sustain safe operations. Of that sum, at least 20% must be spent on staff, programs and technology that address learning loss. School districts were required to submit plans by Aug. 24 for allocating the newest, and largest, ESSER tranche, part of the American Rescue Plan Act.