2021-22 ESSER Investments & Projects Plans

Category 1: Activities that promote health and safety, including purchasing cleaning supplies, supplying PPE, completing school facility repairs and improvements that will reduce risk of virus transmission and exposure to environmental health hazards, and providing mental health services and support. 

Approximately 23% of Highline’s investments meet Category 1 under ESSER Allowable Use.

Category 2: Activities that support academic acceleration efforts, especially activities that address the needs of students experiencing poverty, students with disabilities, multilingual/English learners, students of color, students experiencing homelessness, and foster care youth.

Activities:

•  Planning and implementing summer learning
• Supplemental afterschool programs
• Outreach
• Service delivery
• Administering high-quality assessments to assess academic progress
• Implementing evidence-based activities to meet the comprehensive needs of students
• Providing information and assistance to families on how to effectively support students
• Tracking student attendance and re-engagement efforts
•  Improving engagement in remote learning

Approximately 22% of Highline’s investments meet Category 2 under ESSER Allowable Use.

Category 3: Activities necessary to maintain district operations, including the coordination of COVID-19 preparedness and response efforts, providing school leaders with resources to address individual school needs, continuing to employ existing staff, purchasing educational technology for students, and planning for/coordinating the delivery of instruction and services during remote learning.

Approximately 55% of Highline’s investments meet Category 3 under ESSER Allowable Use. 

Category 4: Any activity authorized by ESEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), or Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins CTE).

Many of our initiatives categorized under Category 2, also meet allowable use under Category , such as our Learning Acceleration Programs for students in Special Education.

• Resources for Maintenance & Operations (19%): Ventilation, Cleaning Supplies, & PPE (+more)
• Highline’s Return to Learn Needs (7%): Investment Reserve to Adapt to Changing Guidance, Supervision Support, Waskowitz, Support Staff, (+more)
• District Covid Response (6%): COVID Testing and the Coordination of Covid Response & Recovery 
• Supporting the Whole Child (7%): Universal SEL Screeners, SEL Specialists, School Counselors, (+more)

• Launching Learning Acceleration (29%): Extended Day, Summer School, & Family Connections (+more)
• Supporting Remote Learning (16%): Virtual Academy, Elementary Remote & Distance Learning (+more)

• Investing in Communities & Families (7%): Partnership Specialists & Contracts with CBO’s (+more)

• Actualizing Strategic Priorities (9%): Curriculum Adoption & Implementation, Standards Based Grading, Instructional Technology, Professional Development, Leadership Pathways (+more)

Response strategies are short-term efforts that allow the district to mitigate the immediate impacts of the pandemic. These strategies support continuity of operations and wellness needs.

Recovery strategies build on our response strategies. These mid-term projects support the acceleration of academic and socio-emotional growth and development.

Redesign strategies integrate aspects of our response & recovery strategies with our district’s strategic plan; these are long-term strategies that will transform the way in which our system operates –from grading practices to staff retention efforts. These are the strategies that will continue to be present in Highline after ESSER funds have been spent.

The initial designation of ESSER Investment and Project Plans (also referred to as Academic and Student Wellbeing Recovery Plans) were general–funds designated into different areas of focus by leveraging existing data across the system about student and community needs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This data included information on what existing district strategies were currently successful at cultivating student engagement and socio-emotional and academic achievement, as measured by various forms of narrative data (such as thought exchanges, school surveys, direct student and family engagement, etc.), academic assessments, student engagement, and more. Such forms of data also highlighted current service gaps within our system and provided school and departmental leadership with areas where specific kinds of investments might be most impactful. 

While Highline centered students and families in making the initial designation, the district also needed to consider the federally allowable uses under ESSER funds, the priority areas of investment recommended by OSPI, and state guidelines for health and safety, and prioritized potential investments accordingly.

Additional considerations were strategic, focused on ensuring that Highline could maintain its existing resources and support long-term, and minimize the negative impact on schools and students when the ESSER funding window ultimately closes.

After general designation, the district engaged in a much more thorough planning process that continued several months; the results of that planning are outlined below and throughout this funding summary in more detail. 

Built into the ESSER budget is an investment reserve for return to learn needs, which makes up less than 8% of Highline’s overall ESSER budget. These funds are intended to be re-invested based on initiative data, student, family and community feedback, and adapting/changing guidance. As of November 2021, over $2.5 million has been re-invested to meet student, family and school needs. Areas of re-investment include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Approximately $80,000 was re-invested to provide schools without a current allocation for a social worker access to one, in order to meet the basic needs of students and families amid the Covid-19 pandemic. 
• Over $100,000 was re-invested into the HVAC project in order to fully pay for a replacement/upgrade in five school buildings, instead of four. 
• Over $100,000 was re-invested to support Human Resources with recruitment, retention, and project management efforts amid nationwide staffing shortages as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. 
• Over $200,000 was re-invested to provide PPE and other safety equipment that would ensure schools had the materials needed to meet Covid-19 safety protocols for air purification and personal protective equipment. 
• Approximately $500,000 was re-invested (through multiple sources) to deepen the Covid Health Response Team and provide schools with additional isolation room coverage, contact tracing, and covid testing support. 
• Approximately $500,000 was re-invested in additional arrival, lunch and dismissal support (under school direction) to allow schools to maintain COVID-19 safety protocols for physical distancing in large, communal spaces. 
• Approximately $900,000 was re-invested to provide schools with flexible allocations to meet their individual school needs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• Additional funds were also re-allocated to increase socio-emotional support in schools, to provide additional curriculum/staffing support in remote learning, and to provide additional services to special education students.

Feedback and data were reviewed from all over Highline in making designations. Over 250 members of the Highline community have participated in the planning and development of various projects and initiatives, such as: 

• Instructional Materials Committee: The instructional materials committee, composed of participants from the community and Highline families, alongside teachers and building administrators, will continue to review, recommend, and approve nearly $6 million in curriculum materials purchased out of ESSER. 
• CARE: Participants from the community, families and students, alongside teachers and building administrators, are working on proposing how the district should use nearly $4 million in Community Guided Funds; select members of that committee and other teams may also support the project planning and implementation process after the district has approved the proposals for the funds. 
• Building Leadership: Building leaders from each school engaged in the proposal for use and project implementation of nearly $3.2 million in School Guided Funds, including additional supervision, learning acceleration, and school directed support allocations for each Highline school. In addition, the academic planning teams were instrumental in developing the project summaries and timelines under P-3, extended day learning, and standards-based grading. 
• Central Office Leadership: Various central office administrators, including our instructional leadership executive directors, executive directors of human resources, and the directors of family and community engagement, social-emotional learning, social services, safety and security, maintenance, covid health response, covid recovery, special education, as well as others, directly collaborated with student service teams and individual school buildings in the planning and implementation of over forty different projects funded under ESSER. 
• Highline Board of Directors: The Highline Board of Directors have been instrumental in making key revisions to existing and approving new board policies that support initiatives such as adult wellness and standards-based grading; supported by our communications, business services, human resources, and policy/strategy teams. 

ESSER is intended to ensure that schools return to operations safely, as well as help students experience learning acceleration and receive increased social emotional and mental health services/supports.

As a district, our planning was initially focused on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic; utilizing ESSER funds to help cover increased operational costs by paying for PPE, instructional technology, the increased FTE needed to keep up with facilities/maintenance needs, upgrading our HVAC and filtration systems, and support temporary classroom spaces/staffing to comply with Health and Safety Guidelines. As we entered the third round of ESSER funding, we utilized thought exchanges, school surveys, student assessments, and state-wide data to identify potential recovery strategies.

We began to consider how we might invest in strategies that allow us as a district to re-design our traditional approaches to education in support of Student Academic and social-emotional well-being; ultimately, such investments are designed as long-term strategies that will support students and families beyond the immediate impacts of the pandemic itself.  

As part of receiving ESSER 3 Funds, Highline was required to submit an Academic and Student Well-being Recovery plan in May 2021, as well as a safe return to in-person instruction and continuity of services plan in August of 2021.

Like all districts, Highline appropriated most ESSER funds toward initiatives that supported learning recovery and school safety efforts in alignment with OSPI’s key themes: student well-being, student and family voice, professional learning, recovery and acceleration, diagnostic assessments, and community partnerships.

Each of these themes are outlined in relation to each funding area throughout the 2021-22 ESSER Funding Project Overview, which is serving as an updated version of Highline’s Academic and Student Well-being Recovery Plan posted in Spring of 2021.