This article is open to all free of cost, as the reporting for this entire series was made possible by a grant from the Poynter Institute with support from the Joyce Foundation.
Read all of our reporting on the American Rescue Plan Act’s impact in Ashland County here. And if you have any questions for the reporter, send him an email at dillon@ashlandsource.com.
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ASHLAND — It’s a simple question: Tell us where American Rescue Plan Act money was spent in Ashland County’s education community.
The answer, however, is complicated — and requires a lot of backstory.
Let’s start with answering how much money went to schools. Public school districts in Ashland County received roughly $13.1 million between 2021 and 2022 through the American Rescue Plan Act.
The state’s Department of Education requires reporting every cent of that money.
So far, districts have reported spending $12.7 million, leaving $464,624.06 unaccounted for, or unreported. Four of the six school districts we investigated for this series submitted their 2024 reports to the state.
Black River Local Schools and Loudonville-Perrysville Exempted Village School District have yet to report their expenditures from the last year. They have until Dec. 2, according to the Ohio Department of Education.
To refresh, President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in March 2021. The money aimed to blunt the blow of the pandemic’s economic and social impact in local and state governments, public schools and colleges.
ARPA established various funds, designated for different recipients. Local governments, for instance, received money through the act’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, or SLFRF.
See how Ashland County's Local Governments spent ARPA Money
Money for K-12 public school districts was divided into funds, all with different stated purposes.
Universities also received funds through ARPA. That pot of money was known as the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). Ashland University received funds from HEERF.
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief
First established in the 2020 CARES Act, this fund — known as ESSER — came in three waves. The first two waves were part of the CARES Act. The third came under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and is referred to as ESSER III or ARP ESSER. It provided Ohio schools nearly $4.5 billion to stymie disruptions caused to education by the pandemic. Schools received funding from the general ESSER III program, but the fund also had three programs aimed at specific needs.
IDEA Part B
Stands for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Ohio received $99.1 million to fund educational agencies aimed at providing special education services to children with disabilities aged 3-21.
IDEA Part C
Ohio received $7.1 million to fund systems of coordinated, comprehensive, multidisciplinary and interagency programs to make early intervention services available to toddlers with disabilities and their families.
HCY
Stands for Homeless Children and Youth. Ohio received $29.3 million to identify homeless children and youth, to provide homeless children and youth with wrap-around services to address the challenges of COVID-19, and to enable homeless children and youth to attend school and fully participate in school activities.
Our process
We specifically examined school districts that serve students who live in disadvantaged areas, per the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool.
That tool was meant to inform legislators' regulatory decisions about how ARPA money should be spent. To learn more about disadvantaged areas in Ashland County, click here.
Those particular districts include:
- Ashland City Schools
- Mapleton Local Schools
- Loudonville-Perrysville Exempted Village Schools
- Black River Local Schools
- Ashland County Community Academy
Ashland Source received public records from each district, along with Hillsdale Local Schools.
Reporters did not review records belonging to Crestview Local School District. Although the district enrolls students who live in Ashland County, the school itself is located in Richland County.
Public school districts in Ohio are required to submit reports to the state's Department of Education known as Final Expenditure Reports, or FERs, for each federal grant received.
The website used to submit the reports is called the Comprehensive Continuous Improvement Plan (CCIP) system. It is publicly accessible.
Districts received ARP ESSER, or "ESSER III," dollars in 2021 and 2022, but were given until Sept. 30, 2024 to spend it and until Dec. 2, 2024 to report it.
Therefore, Ashland Source, pored over districts' FERs from 2022-2024 in order to reveal how each district reported their use of this specific money.
The CCIP system captures expenses in six different categories, pictured below.
Here's how spending broke down
We made two pie charts to better understand how Ashland County's six school districts spent their funds.
The first chart shows that most of the money went to capital outlays, which include building renovations and new construction.
Salaries and benefits was the next big one, followed by supplies and purchased services. None of the school districts spent money in the "other" category.
Schools didn't receive as much under other ARPA related grants, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Homeless Children and Youth. Here's how those numbers broke down. Ashland Source decided to name these funds "Student Supports."
But the pie charts above only tell part of the story.
The state's CCIP system doesn't show more detail beyond the provided categories. Getting those specifics required in-person interviews with individual administrators after combing through multiple years' worth of CCIP reports.
Ashland Source reporters spoke with officials from each school district, except Ashland County Community Academy. Officials there did not respond to multiple requests for interviews.
We didn't reach out to Hillsdale Local Schools for further questions because that district is not in a disadvantaged area, per the Climate and Justice Economic Screening Tool.
In the coming days, Ashland Source will publish stories that aim to provide a focused picture of how this money was spent and — more importantly — how the windfall impacted students.
