How to better support Covid-19 response and improve health in schools

This post is written by Dan Vogel and James Post at the_ Centre for Public Impact._

• The problem: Too many schools in the US are in danger of not taking advantage of federal funding due to a lack of information and guidance.
• Why it matters: This funding will allow schools to upgrade facilities and improve the health and well-being of students, staff, faculty, and the community at large.
• The solution: Launching peer learning networks would allow schools to coordinate and share knowledge. On a larger scale, making this funding permanent and setting up a bureaucracy and infrastructure to support it would ensure all schools nationwide benefit.

With the passage of several rounds of stimulus, most recently the American Rescue Plan, schools in the United States face an unusual twist to an unprecedented situation: many schools have an extraordinary amount of dollars to manage Covid-19 in their schools, but a dearth of guidance on what is available, how to attain it, and how to spend it. To best use the money on the table, and to set up schools for better health after the pandemic, educators need access to robust networks of continuous learning, support, and expertise. We believe this is best achieved through peer learning networks.

To understand the depth of the problem, let’s examine ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funding. One allowable use of ESSER Funding is Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) for Covid-19. Many districts and schools are unaware of ESSER funding or its rapidly approaching deadlines. Similarly, while the allowable uses of ESSER funds are flexible, the fund is time-limited. So we’re seeing districts and teachers prioritising projects with high upfront costs but lower overhead - like upgrading HVAC systems - rather than making longer-term investments that are similarly critical when combatting Covid-19 and that will better support healthy schools after the pandemic subsides - like hiring school nurses.

Sound complicated? That’s because it is. The rules around relief funding are complex and the pandemic is ever-evolving. Add in schools’ administrative constraints and overwhelmed staff, and the result is spending that _somewhat _improves IPC efforts or funding simply left on the table.

How to make a difference

In Washington D.C., a peer learning network, the D.C. Covid-19 Response Collaborative, was started with funding from The Rockefeller Foundation to help Local Education Agencies navigate the pandemic's impact on schools. Through regularly convening education professionals with public health experts, participating D.C. schools could access health expertise on the virus and its spread, while sharing challenges and best practices. Similarly, learning-oriented networks could help educators across the country understand the complex space of Covid-19 funding and set their schools up to be healthier in the long term.

Let’s consider the potential of a peer learning network in terms of bringing together educators from across the country to focus on IPC. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to optimised IPC in schools is a lack of centralised information on the available funding, its constraints, and optimal ways to use it.

Rather than look for quick fixes, we should equip our schools and school districts with the knowledge, peer connections, and resources they need to prepare for the long haul of Covid-19.

The combined minds of a national peer learning network could produce, for example, Open and Safe Schools’ list of available federal funding, Chiefs for Change’s exercises to help schools work with the local public health agencies, the Federal Education Group’s available legal support to help schools spend down money, and The Rockefeller Foundation’s guidance on using federal funds for routine K-12 testing. Such a network would also be equipped to break down silos in information to minimise overlapping efforts and identify where critical gaps exist. One model to draw from, spearheaded by the White House, and supported by the U.S. Department of Education, the CDC, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Brown University is the Learning Network for School and District Leaders, which brought together school and district leaders from across the country to facilitate peer-to-peer learning, and offered technical and practical guidance to help schools start and sustain testing programmes.

How to scale it

While setting up a peer learning network to respond to Covid-19 in schools would be beneficial, there is a question of feasibility at a large scale. Fortunately, state and federal policymakers seeking to shift from time-limited Covid-19 funding to long-term solutions for better health in schools can look to existing national education policies for inspiration.

According to Leah Perkinson, Director of Research Translation and Evaluation at Brown University, who also directed the K-12 National Learning Network, “To create a more comprehensive path forward for schools in both COVID-19 response and health overall, we need to support them with both technical assistance and sustained funding. Policymakers can look to existing national education policies, like IDEA Act and National School Lunch Programme, for inspiration on structuring longer-term support.”

Perkinson shared that the IDEA Act is one interesting model of technical assistance that could be foundational for a national peer learning network on IPC in schools. Passed in 2004 to ensure that students with disabilities have equitable opportunities to be college and career-ready - the IDEA Act created an entire constellation of national and regional technical assistance centres that are staffed with experts dedicated to assisting school leaders, learners, and families across every level of the education system. Perkinson believes that if we build a similar model for IPC in schools, leaders could access the tools, guidance, and individualised training they need to stand up IPC programmes. This would be complemented by peer learning, which would facilitate sharing of best practices and lessons learned among educators in real-time; ultimately providing the just-in-time information they need to make informed decisions for healthier schools.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to optimised IPC in schools is a lack of centralised information on the available funding, its constraints, and optimal ways to use it.

Looking beyond the time-limited funding currently available, Perkinson also emphasised her belief that IPC efforts would benefit from long-term funding. The National School Lunch Program, passed in 1946, shifted lunch funding from individual entities to the federal government. Once the programme was passed, schools and school boards were assured of sustained funding and could build the infrastructure and hire the staff they needed to run a lunch programme. “If school boards and districts had the promise of sustained funding for IPC programs and health improvements,” noted Perkinson, “They would be able to make investments in systems and structures which allow them to continuously adapt and improve response to Covid-19 and other health challenges.”

The United States is in a rare moment where there is money on the table for health in our schools. Rather than look for quick fixes, we should equip our schools and school districts with the knowledge, peer connections, and resources they need to prepare for the long haul of Covid-19. Even more so, we should support them to think beyond the pandemic, create IPC solutions with staying-power, and build healthier schools in the long term.

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