Medina County schools getting more COVID-19 federal relief

More than $17 million in newly allocated federal relief will be headed to Medina County schools in the near future. Those dollars are part of $632.4 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds being distributed to districts statewide, which was authorized by Ohio House Bill 170 going into effect June 2. This is the third round of ESSER allocations with districts using money for reimbursements on numerous COVID-19 pandemic-related costs. Wadsworth Schools Treasurer Doug Beeman said a new specification in this third round will require districts to spend 20 percent of funds on "learning loss" initiatives like summer school. "These are learning loss areas that are deemed to be associated with the pandemic," Beeman said Thursday. "We are running some extensive summer school programs that we have not done in the past, especially at the elementary grade level. We'll be using funds to pay for that program at the K-8 level to meet that spending need. There are some additional ideas we're looking at too." Wadsworth Schools is set to receive $2.6 million in round three of ESSER distribution. The first two rounds of ESSER funding came respectively as part of last spring's federal CARES Act and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which was passed by Congress in December. Round three allocations to other Medina County districts include: Brunswick — $4.2 million Medina — $3.6 million Cloverleaf — $2.2 million Black River — $1.9 million Buckeye — $1.3 million Highland — $1.1 million "This money has been incredibly helpful," Beeman said. "Obviously with school reopening last fall there were many, many things that we had to have put in place. If we had to take that money out of our general fund it would have been very problematic. In addition, these funds have assisted with leaves that staff members have had to take if they became ill or were quarantined because of being in close proximity." Cloverleaf Superintendent Daryl Kubilus said ESSER money going to his district helped pay for more than $400,000 in trailers that were needed to maintain classroom social distancing. "There were the trailers and the cleaning supplies and all of the sanitization initiatives that we've taken," he said. "We needed to ensure the 6-foot social distance and spent many of thousands of dollars on those cleaning supplies and things like sprayers and hand sanitizing stations." "When we allocated those resources, we at that time only had our general fund," Kubilus added. "But we knew we had to do it. It was in the best interest of safety for our kids. When ESSER was announced, it was an immediate relief for us. To be able to ensure we could administer our online learning academy and to just get though the year safely, it was a blessing." Contact reporter Jonathan Delozier at (330)721-4050 or jdelozier@medina-gazette.com.