By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Nine weeks into the school year, and the Hays USD 489 has already spent much of the more than half million dollars in COVID funds the district has received.
Chris Hipp, assistant superintendent of business services, gave a report on the COVID-related expenses at the Hays school board meeting Monday.
USD 489 received funding for COVID-related expenses from three sources: federal CARES Act aid, Ellis County SPARK CARES Act aid and a grant from the district's insurance company, Aetna.
The Federal Care Act money was split into direct aid to the district and $54,624 in pass through money that went to the special education co-op. $21,583 in CARES money was also shared with the local private schools.
The Ellis County SPARK CARES Act money is federal money that was distributed through the county.
The Aetna funding was spent on thermometers.
$57,000 was spent on the Edgenuity program, which is the program that is being used for parent choice remote learning.
A portion of the staffing expense was adding another nursing position, so head nurse, Jessica Roe, could have time to deal with COVID-related questions and contact tracing.
Equipment and supplies included items, such as hand cleaner, disinfectant and batteries for thermometers.
COVID has resulted in an increase in pay to teachers for substituting or teaching in lieu of their planning periods. That has totaled $23,000 to date this school year. The district has also seen an increase in substitute teacher costs of about $21,000 compared to the same period last year.
"For the most part, we are able to pay for the direct COVID costs based on the additional revenues we got," Hipp said.
The district has about $125,000 that it has not spent from the COVID funds.
Hipp said there will be more staffing expenses and more supplies that will be need to be restocked before the end of the school year.
"We won't have any problem spending the CARES money," he said.
Any costs above the COVID revenues would come from the district's contingency reserves, he said.
Superintendent Ron Wilson said there has been talk at the federal level of another stimulus package with some funds going to schools for COVID expenses. However, he said the district is not counting on any more federal funds coming in.
Remote learning
As the school year progresses, families are choosing to leave parent choice remote learning and move students back into the classroom, Wilson said.
The district started the school year with more than 200 students in remote learning. Now it is down to 129 students. Seventy-five of the remote learners are elementary students, 32 are middle school students and 22 are high school students.
Quarantine changes
Wilson said the feedback has been positive concerning a change the board made in quarantine rules.
The district decided to reduce the quarantine for students and staff who had a close contact with someone at school who tested positive for COVID-19 from 14 to seven days.
Wilson said in an interview for the KAYS Morning Show the district is seeing the number of students in quarantine go down.
Unemployment fraud
USD 489 and employers across the state are dealing with a surge in fraudulent unemployment claims, Hipp said.
The district has had 26 staff members who were the victims of fraudulent claims since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Hipp said the district has notified the employees involved so they can work with the Kansas Department of Labor to report the fraud.
"There is nothing our staff can do to avoid it," Hipp said. "They are not getting the information from us."
In other business, the school board:
• Heard a report from Kyle Carlin on the special education co-op
• Selected Tammy Wellbrock as the delegate to Kansas Association of School Boards Conference in December and Allen Park as the alternate.