March 5, 2024 — The deadline to obligate remaining funds from the third and last round of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER III) is fast approaching. While schools still must obligate funds by the September 30, 2024 deadline, the U.S. Department of Education recently announced that state agencies, school districts and other sub-recipients of ESSER III funding can request an extension for using or liquidating funds to March 2026. Previously, agencies could request an extension to use funds until January 2025.
States, districts, and schools can and have used their ESSER funds for a variety of expenses such as professional development for teachers and staff, technology needs, expanded learning opportunities, mental health support, tutoring services, and more. As these deadlines approach, though, districts and schools are going to have to figure out how to do without the funds—what some are describing as a “fiscal cliff.” With some districts and schools already starting to pull back programming to account for when ESSER funding wraps up, NCTR has gathered a few resources to help inform and prepare our Network:
- Learn about potential implications of the ESSER fiscal cliff for student equity from this report by Brookings.
- See how your state and/or district has so far spent ESSER funds using this dashboard created and maintained by the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
- See how different states might experience and expect to be affected by the “fiscal cliff” in this analysis by Education Resource Strategies.
- Learn about what states, districts, and advocates can do to help sustain funding and programming beyond ESSER from reports by Education Resource Strategies and The Education Trust.
Teacher residencies have benefitted from ESSER funds in many states across the country. The following examples demonstrate how strategically directed funds can provide aspiring and existing teacher residencies the funds they need to design, launch, scale, and improve. ESSER funds are a savvy long-term investment that in turn becomes a long-term solution to address teacher shortages, increase teacher diversity, and improve teacher quality and retention.
- Washington Office of Public Instruction (OSPI) allocated ESSER funds to help launch the Washington Education Association Teacher Residency Program, the first union-led teacher residency program in the country. WEA Teacher Residency participated in NCTR’s Residency Design Academy and is now an NCTR Network member.
- The Mississippi State Board of Education allocated $9.8 million of ARP/ESSER funds to fund the Mississippi Teacher Residency (MTR). MTR is a graduate-level educator preparation program that has been operating since 2018 by the Mississippi Department of Education’s (MDE) Office of Teaching and Leading, and currently partners with local school districts and five university partners in the state, including Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, University of Southern Mississippi, and William Carey University. All five universities are part of NCTR’s Network and NCTR supported the design and launch of these programs through its Residency Design Academy.
- The Virginia Department of Education allocated $12 million to a variety of programs as part of its ongoing teacher recruitment and retention efforts. NCTR Network members, Old Dominion University and Virginia Commonwealth University’s teacher residency program, RTR, received funds for statewide expansion.
- Through the Maryland Leads opportunity, Baltimore County Public Schools and Loyola University Maryland are working with NCTR via the Residency Design Academy to design and launch a teacher residency program.