Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER
- March 2020: CARES Act – Over $310 Million to New Jersey.
- December 2020: Coronovirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSA Act) of 2021 – Over $1.25 Billion to New Jersey.
- March 2021: American Rescue Plan (ARP) – Over $2.75 billion to New Jersey.
These funds were designed to facilitate the continued operations of schools, and to make sure students got the extra support they needed during the pandemic and beyond. The funds have been used to hire new staff and avoid layoffs, develop strategies and implement protocols for reopening school facilities, and maintaining and protecting the health as safety of students, educators and staff.
Through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), significant additional federal funding was made available to states for allocation to local school districts. One of the requirements of this third round funding is that each school district reserve “not less than 20% of its total ARPA allocation to address learning loss. They are required to use evidence-based interventions, such as summer learning or summer enrichment, extended day, comprehensive afterschool programs, or extended school year programs. They are also required to ensure that interventions “respond to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs and address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student groups,” and explicitly reference students with disabilities.
In December 2022, the US Department of Education provided updated guidance on how ESSER funds can be used to address the impact of lost instructional time, with specific recommendations and suggestions for students with disabilities eligible under IDEA.1
For district-by-district subgrant allocations of ARPA funding in New Jersey, click here.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the funds New Jersey has received have not been spent. In fact, among all states, New Jersey ranks 44th in progress in spending Federal ESSER funding. According to the US Department of Education’s monitoring, New Jersey schools have spent only 26.6% of all ESSER funds allocated to date; only 9.4% of the most recent ARP Act funds — which contain specific minimum targets for learning loss — have been spent.
Most other states have already spent larger proportions of their local allocations, according to a report released in January 2023 by FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank that is monitoring school relief spending.
Districts have until 2024 to spend the remaining federal funds. Some school officials point to the fact that longer term projects won’t be reflected in the expenditures until they are obligated in future budgets. Others argue that because the federal money is intended to supplement existing programs and budgets — and New Jersey is a state with so many smaller districts — some districts may not have the capacity for planning and developing programs to spend in such a short period of time. To help them, New Jersey’s County Offices of Education are charged with running regular roundtables to assist districts in planning for and expending the grant monies.
Advocates and educators are concerned about the delays. When it comes to learning loss, especially among younger students, leveraging developmental windows are crucial and time sensitive. Delays in implementing recovery programs risk missing opportunities with the students who need the greatest focus now. And, they say, that is exactly what the ARP Act funding was intended to do.
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1. Frequently Asked Questions – Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Programs; Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Programs, U.S. Department of Education; December 7, 2022 Update, ESSER and GEER Use of Funds FAQ; SEC. C-5, How may an LEA use ESSER and GEER funds to support the needs of children with disabilities under the IDEA?
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