The Centralia High School Board of Education discussed potential uses of funding from multiple federal grants at its meeting on Thursday, including new school vehicles, equipment, and classroom technology.
Superintendent Chuck Lane says the federal money that is targeted to low-income schools is giving them some parity for the first time.
“Schools in more affluent areas have these kinds of funds every year and now we are in the same situation. So it’s good for our kids to get new stuff and we can keep up with all the recent trends.”
The pending ESSER Grant, which is expected to provide the school with 1.5 million dollars in funding, may be put toward acquiring several vehicles, including two 14-passenger buses and two large SUVs—which would be useful for transporting small groups of students to and from off-campus events—as well a new school bus. Other proposed applications of the grant money include new custodial equipment, desks, and technology for use in science, math, and robotics classes. A previous grant, the ESSER I grant, provided the school with 350,000 dollars.
CHS will also be applying for an American Rescue Project grant totaling 3.6 million dollars, which can be spent over the course of the next three years on projects to help students as the school looks to return to a state of normalcy following a full school year affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Uses for grant funding are limited and cannot be spent on staff salaries and benefits, and portions of the grants are required to be spent in specific ways.
Lane says 20-percent of the money is set aside for student learning recovery and that will spawn creating of a new after-school tutoring program.
“In the past, we have said if we could have a program like that and provide transportation and provide another meal for the day we would have kids come. So now we can finally do that with this grant. We can have kids stay after school, they get help with their homework, and they get to eat.”
Lane says the school is still fine-tuning details of the program.
