The state granted Milpitas Unified School District (MUSD) $3.1 million in funding when the district reopened in-person learning to elementary school students and high school freshmen on April 1st, MUSD Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Wendy Zhang said in a Zoom interview. This funding from the state is in addition to the approximately $4.3 million the district previously received in federal funding through the CARES Act, Zhang added.
The $3.1 million dollars in state funding will be used to support in-person learning (IPL), Superintendent Cheryl Jordan said in a Zoom interview. These funds are being used on three main areas: tech equipment, personal protection equipment (PPE), and staffing support, Jordan added.
“A majority of the funding, about $2.3 million, has been spent on tech equipment and we are in the process of ordering additional tech equipment,” Jordan said in a Zoom interview. “Tech equipment would mainly be the chromebooks, laptops of teachers and staff members, swivels, iPads, and hotspots … Then we’ve spent about 10% on PPE, and the rest has been spent on staffing support and distance learning.”
Since the initial shelter-in-place order last school year, MUSD has spent about half a million dollars of the CARES Act funding on PPE, Zhang said. PPE is necessary for the district to reopen IPL, as it includes equipment like testing, masks, shields, sanitation products, and even high pressure disinfecting machines that custodians use to disinfect classrooms within 10 minutes, Zhang added.
“Tech equipment and safety equipment is one side, but the other side is staffing,” Zhang said. “Even though the governor issued the shelter-in-place order last year, district office staff like lunch ladies and custodians did not take any time off… In my own department, we never missed any payroll to our staff. So, we still have to pay our teachers and supporting staff, since we’ve always been running and operating, even under shelter-in-place.”
Also, to support students doing IPL or who need extra support, MUSD has used some of the funding to hire additional staff and provide extra resources for students, Jordan said.
“Throughout the year since October, we have had learning labs for students who haven’t been engaged at the secondary level … and we have had learning pods for students at the elementary level who need additional support or whose parents can’t stay home with them,” Jordan said. “This required additional staffing of classified employees which would be campus supervisors or other teachers. So, in total, we’ve spent roughly about $4.3 million overall.”
According to Jordan, about 17% of students across the district, which is about 1,900 students, are doing IPL. This includes students who are failing as well as struggling English learners, Jordan said. As of May 5th, the data on these students shows that the funding going towards IPL has helped a majority of them do better in school and has also increased their attendance, she added.
“The primary goal was to support the 10% of students who were not doing well, as I have received from parents of little ones, like first and second grade, who shared that their children just were not getting that social interaction that they needed and also that it was very difficult for them to keep their child focused on the screen in order to learn,” Jordan said. “So, really wanting to make sure that all our students have the opportunity to learn is the emphasis on wanting to fund and have IPL.”