The Fort Dodge Community School District Board of Education approved a plan Monday evening to help support students in the district who sustained learning loss due to COVID-19 and distance learning.

The ESSER III plan will employ funds and guidance from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) released by the U.S. Department of Education in April..

According to the ESSER III plan, FDCSD leadership teams analyzed Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress data, student results from the Condition for Learning Survey, literacy and math screening, and progress monitoring data and behavior referral data to determine the needs of students in order to best address those needs with these funds.

Based on this research, the plan states they found the groups most impacted by COVID-19 to be students from low income families, students of color or from a particular ethnic group, students with disabilities, English learners, students experiencing homelessness, children and youth in foster care, and migrant students.

The ESSER III funds will be used in a variety of ways across the district.

Superintendent Derrick Joel said, “Our allocation estimate is about $1.7 million in that fund. We’re looking at a differentiation coordinator, summer school, Leader in Me, which is a social emotional curriculum and initiative by the district.”

In addition, the plan lists several other implementations such as use of evidence-based accelerated learning interventions in literacy, math, and social emotional behavior, an online platform to provide flexible or accelerated learning opportunities and staff to oversee this platform, literacy paras, English Language Learner teachers and tutors, extended learning opportunities after the school day, a dyslexia specialist, an intervention teacher, and a nurse to provide evidence based health and mitigation learning opportunities.

Joel said they built many staff members into this plan, but were unable to fill all the positions.

“What we’re trying to do is just balance what are the needs that we are seeing as a result of online learning and COVID-19 in general,” he said.”Then what supports can we put in place and cover under the learning loss domain.”

The board approved the ESSER III plan unanimously except for Matt Moritz who was absent.

The board also approved a request from Kirsten Doebel, director of secondary education services, and Steph Anderson, director of elementary education services. The request was to spend $30,000 for support for both building and district leadership to develop an Multi-Tiered System of Supports for pre-kindergarten to high school seniors.

The professional development instruction will come from a company called West Ed.

“Kirsten and I have been investigating how we can better support both the behavioral side and the academic side of our MTSS structure within the schools and really building a systemic approach to that instead of one school doing something one way and one doing it another way,” Anderson said

Anderson explained that this professional development would help develop a system that would be the same across the district as to how students are receiving support and how they determine when a student no longer needs extra support. They received bids from two companies, West Ed and BetterLesson and chose the slightly less expensive WestEd plan. The board approved the request unanimously.