CARES Act and K-12 Budgets: Robert Avossa on the 2020-21 Outlook

In early June 2020, with buildings closed and next year’s budgets due, district leaders wanted to know what federal relief would actually buy. On this episode of edCircuit’s Education Today podcast, presented by Soundtrap for Education, Dr. Robert Avossa, then senior vice president and publisher of education products at LRP Media Group and a former superintendent of Palm Beach County and Fulton County schools, walked through what the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act meant for K-12 funding and budgets heading into 2020-21.

Education TodayS1E8 - CARES Act and K-12 Funding Outlook for 2020-21June 4, 2020 · 16 min 32 sPlay episode: S1E8 - CARES Act and K-12 Funding Outlook for 2020-21 (16 minutes 32 seconds)0:00-16:32Follow on SpotifyApple

CARES Act K-12 funding: a smaller cushion than the last recession

Avossa, who oversaw a $2.6 billion annual budget in Palm Beach County, began with a comparison. After the housing crash, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act put roughly $100 billion into education. The CARES Act‘s education fund was about $30 billion, and close to half of it was set aside for colleges and universities. The law’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund came to about $13.2 billion for schools, with a separate governors’ fund of about $3 billion that states could direct to schools or colleges.

Spread across the country’s school districts, he said, that sum is “actually really not that much.” His larger worry lay elsewhere. Federal money is a small slice of most district budgets; Avossa put it at 3 to 5 percent, and national figures from the National Center for Education Statistics place the federal share of public school revenue nearer 8 percent. Either way, the bulk comes from states and local taxes, and states and localities cannot run deficits. When their revenue falls, schools feel it. “I’m worried that this is just not enough,” he said.

His advice to educators was to prepare, stay flexible and advocate for additional funding, while superintendents and school boards tried to avoid the job losses many expected.

Planning for “version 2.0”

Parents, Avossa said, had given schools “essentially a pass” for the scramble of March through May. He did not expect the same patience in the fall. If schools had to reopen in the same remote mode in August or September, expectations would be much higher, and leaders were already preparing for that possibility.

He urged leaders to drop the idea of a simple open-or-closed decision. Some districts were weighing schedules that rotated students in and out of buildings to allow distancing. “I wouldn’t think of it as a light switch, whether we’re on or off,” he said. “I’d think of it like a dimmer,” with schools coming back slowly and watching for hot spots. There were, he added, no easy answers.

Where districts found room in the budget

The closures did produce some savings. Buildings in lockdown mode used far less energy: air conditioning set to 80 degrees in the South, heat turned off in the North. Buses were not running, so fuel went unbought. For some districts, Avossa said, those savings ran to millions of dollars.

He also pointed to a change in federal carryover rules. Districts can normally carry no more than 15 percent of their Title I allocation into the next year; anything above that goes back. Under the CARES Act, the U.S. Department of Education could waive that limit, so districts that had not spent their 2020 federal dollars could roll them into 2021, money he expected to help protect jobs.

Free trials would end

Many parents had asked whether the apps their children used on school Chromebooks would vanish when budgets tightened. Avossa credited vendors for offering many tools free during the first 90 days of closures, but said that could not last because companies have bills to pay too. Districts that had tested a wide range of products would now have to decide which ones to keep, and find the money for them.

He also saw an opening. Learning, he argued, does not have to happen only between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. in a school building. Districts could use the moment to reach students who were behind or at risk all year round, including through teachers who might choose to work evening hours.

Principals need a voice, and teachers need room

A former principal himself, Avossa described building a supportive culture remotely as “really hard,” however many video meetings a school held. He praised principals who found creative ways to keep staff motivated and asked them to use the summer to recharge and build capacity, because teachers would need their support in the fall.

Superintendents, in turn, should empower principals: ask for their views when decisions are made, survey them regularly and accept honest feedback. In Palm Beach County he had about 220 principals, with several layers between him and each school, which makes that harder in large systems. Good systems, he said, depend on “coaching up, coaching down and coaching sideways.”

The spring had also changed how he saw teachers. Education is heavily regulated, he said, and leaders have often told teachers exactly what to do, when and how. Watching teachers find free resources and keep children engaged, he concluded that “maybe we’ve put those guardrails too tight.” He hoped districts would keep some guardrails while giving teachers a bigger voice in decisions.

Hearing from every family

For parents, Avossa recommended the same approach as for staff: survey the community often and do not take criticism personally. “It’s okay if someone says that’s not working,” he said. Fix it and move on.

He was most concerned about the families least likely to be heard. College-educated parents with support at home know how to make their voices count. Parents who are overwhelmed simply putting food on the table may never write a letter or walk into the school to complain. Reaching those families, and helping them learn to advocate for their children, is the school system’s responsibility, he said.

Listen to the full conversation in the player above, or find every episode on the Education Today show page.

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