Burbio School Tracker 8/6: Finding Funding

1.  Burbio's State-Level Funding Tracker features continuously updated, state-specific grants for K-12 schools, covering all state departments, as well as Federal grants where states can tailor the criteria. Burbio has identified over 1,000 grants covering over $30 billion in spending. This week we extend our look at state priorities by looking at Pennsylvania, and highlight how their priorities appear in state grants.   

Pennsylvania's 2024-25 Executive Budget highlights "Budget Themes" among them:

• Providing Career and Technical Education and Dual Enrollment Opportunities: "The 2024-25 budget calls for a $2.4 million increase for Career and Technical Education (CTE) and continuing $7 million in support of dual enrollment . . ."
• Ensuring Safe and Healthy School Facilities: "The 2024-25 budget calls for continuing a $50 million annual investment in school safety and security improvements and $300 million in sustainable funding for environmental repair projects in school buildings."
• Mental Health: "The budget proposal reflects . . . a robust system of mental health supports for students and staff . . ."
• Recruiting and Retaining Top Talent in Education: "The General Assembly already enacted the Talent Recruitment Office and the Educator Talent Recruitment Account as mechanisms to address this problem. The 2024-25 budget builds on these structures . . ."
• Confronting Climate Change and Reducing Climate Pollution: "(The Department of Environmental Protection) has undertaken efforts to begin to address the increasing threat of climate change . . ." 

These initiatives all manifest in K-12 grants that apply to 2024/2025:

• CTE: The Manufacturing PA Training-to-Career Grant Program provides up to $200,000 per recipient with a goal "to work collaboratively with local manufacturers to identify and teach missing essential skills for entry level applicants for existing or near future open positions."
• Healthy School Facilities: The Public Schools Environmental Repairs Program is a $75 million program covering "the remediation and/or abatement of lead in water sources and paint, asbestos, and mold inside school buildings of eligible school entities," among other upgrades. 
• Mental Health:  School Mental Health Grants is an ongoing program that provides a minimum of $100,000 per district for mental health services.
• Talent Development:  The Developing Future Special Educators Grant provides districts up to $20,000 for "opportunities to engage secondary/postsecondary students in learning about and/or working with students with disabilities  . . . "
• Climate Change:  Environmental Education Grants "provides funds to support a wide range of environmental education projects including meaningful, hands-on programs for students, teacher training workshops (and more)" and runs through 2025.

2.  Burbio continues to expand our datasets of district-level documents that provide insights into spending priorities. This quarter we are rolling out a dataset of school budget documents from the 500 largest school districts, available via links in our district profile and keyword searchable. These budget books often have expanded descriptions of spending initiatives highly relevant to K-12 suppliers. Some examples from around the country: 

• Portland Public Schools, OR, presents a variety of security spending initiatives, among them: 
  • "Investments funded by ESSER will continue in 2024-25 on other funding, (including) Safety and security professional development and supplies."
  • A 2017 bond is currently funding security updates at all District schools, and a 2020 bond is funding "updating security cameras, intrusion alarm systems and classroom door locks" as part of the spending.

• Newport News Public Schools, VA  focuses on family engagement, with a team of eight specialists, whose role includes "parent outreach and the dissemination of "books, resources, and  . . . . tutoring services to reinforce skills."
• Shelby County Schools, TN describes extensive high dosage tutoring initiatives, in addition to academic interventions across math and reading, as well as afterschool, summer school, and professional development programs. 
• Cabarrus County Schools, NC details current plans to replace HVAC systems in two elementary schools and a high school.
• Chelsea Public Schools, MA references Social Emotional Learning across their budget document, including details on a state grant to support these initiatives, multiple curricula being used, and SEL professional development initiatives.  

3.  Last week we outlined California districts' unique reporting requirement called "LCAPs,"  three-year plans updated annually, that outline district initiatives. These detailed (over 100 pages) documents are required reading for any supplier working in the state. We recommend starting with the "Goals and Actions" section, which lays out specific spending initiatives and allows for quick identification of spending. A broad set of examples: 

• Supplemental instructional materials:  Sweetwater Union High School District  is spending $19.4 million on supplemental instructional materials "targeting the needs of literacy in math and language development in core subjects."
• Summer school:  Granada Hills Charter District, is spending just over $2 million for "summer school credit recovery and support for all students, extended school year, and summer school accelerated math program, (including) staffing, curriculum materials, and additional resources."
• ELA:  Temecula Valley Unified is spending just over $2.8 million on ELA literary specialists who "will provide researched based literacy support to unduplicated student groups and instructional coaching to teachers to increase overall ELA proficiency."
• Special Education:  Kings Canyon Joint Unified is spending just over $14.6 million on Special Education services covering staff, programming and training. 
• Construction: Greenfield Union School District is spending $10.6 million to add gymnasiums to two district middle schools.
• College and career: Irvine Unified is spending just under $1.7 million on a wide array of college and career readiness programs. Los Banos Unified, is spending $200,000 to "continue to support and develop additional career technical education pathways (CTE) and support student CTE leadership organizations."
• MTSS:  Poway Unified School District is spending $978,000 to "establish and maintain Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS) Teams in each school to axddress the diverse academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs of students."

Burbio is rolling out access to 2024-25 LCAP documents and keyword analysis to our District Profile dashboard later this month.