Burbio School Tracker 7/24: Strategic Plans
This week we present an updated distribution of ESSER III spending levels by district and introduce a new dataset: K-12 District Strategic Plans.
This week we look at ESSER III spending rates in Georgia and Massachusetts, introduce a dataset for California school districts - LCAP Plans - and present the national distribution of K-12 start dates
1. Burbio tracks the amount of ESSER III funding that has been spent by districts nationwide, and also has compiled over 7,000 searchable district plans representing over 83% of K-12 students and over $93 billion in spending. Detailed charts featuring over 75 spending categories can be found on Burbio's ESSER III summary page.
This week we start with a look at Georgia. Statewide, districts have spent just over 50% of their ESSER III funding as of early July. Below is a distribution of percent-spent by decile:
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The chart below breaks down districts by the absolute amount of ESSER III spending remaining:
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2. Next up we look at Massachusetts. The following is a chart of district spending by percentage. Massachusetts’ last reporting date is from last month and as a state they have spent just under one-third of their ESSER III funding:
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Below is the chart with district count and remaining ESSER III allocation:
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3. California has a unique reporting mechanism for districts called a "Local Control Accountability Plan" (LCAP). The LCAP is a three year plan, updated annually, that outlines -- in detailed line-items -- a district's goals and strategies, along with various benchmarks and planned expenditures. Given the scope of these documents Burbio will be adding them to our searchable database of ESSER III plans, school board meeting minutes, and strategic plans for use by partners. LCAPs are approved at school board meetings, and we saw activity in June through our School Board Meeting Tracker. Here are just a few examples of what we found through our searching of key terms in selected plans:
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Huntington Beach Union High School District, CA approved their 102 page plan at the June 27th meeting. Among other initiatives, it mentions MTSS 25 times in detailing a program that is integrated throughout the district.
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Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, CA approved their 168 page plan that mentions "career technical" seventeen times while outlining several million dollars of line-items in career and college readiness programming.
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Whittier Union School District, CA reviewed their 98 page plan at the June 13th meeting. The plan references "English Learner" 74 times, for a district that is almost 90 percent Hispanic, and has multiple line-items of expenditures outlining additional staffing and services to support those students.
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Fresno Unified School District, CA adopted a 265 page plan that includes 24 references to tutoring, including a $108MM after-school tutoring and support line item.
We will be including summary analysis of these documents in future posts.
4. School start dates vary widely across the country, with school starting in late July in some districts and not until after Labor Day in others. Local school schedules trigger economic activity in areas such as retail, travel, child care, and more. Burbio provides school calendar data to partners that use the information to better manage forecasting and demand. Below is a chart that shows the percent of K-12 students starting by week across the U.S. Note that one-third of students will be in classrooms by this Friday and over half students by August 16th:
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