Understanding COVID-19 Funding For Schools: School Safety Today

With so many different federal actions providing COVID-19 funding for schools to reopen this Fall, educators, administrators, and facility managers are struggling to understand the best way to take advantage of all of this assistance and how to center their strategies in thoughtful ways.

Here to give insights on this episode of School Safety Today, a Raptor Technologies podcast is Dr. Paula Love, President, RFPMatch.com, The Funding Doctor. She talked with host Daniel Litwin, the Voice of B2B, about how to align funds to protect your school, details on grant application and submission, and how to create sustainability in your investments and maximize the use of funds.

“What I see right now is a funding frenzy because you’re trying to navigate all these funds and different fund names,” Love said. “Sometimes it’s difficult to ascertain which grants are associated with different acts.”

The CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security) provided funds to the Department of Education called Education Stabilization Funds, which is the umbrella that oversees all funds. There are two pathways that K-12 schools can access: they are ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Education Relief) and GEER(Governor’s Education Emergency Relief) funds.

The ARP ESSER fund has set aside $123 billion in available funds to help K-12 schools safely reopen their doors, providing dollars for health screening tools, funds for learning loss, and additional resources to address the mental well-being of students impacted by the isolation of lockdown. GEER set aside $3 billion, which will use a governor’s discretion for how they will use that money in their state.

Listen to hear Dr. Love further break down the COVID-19 funding for schools.