The Center for Green Schools published new findings on how school districts are responding to newly allocated funds in the wake of the pandemic; and UV made the list. The American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER III or ARP-ESSER) provides federal funds to K-12 schools in order to address a backlog of equipment, building systems and infrastructure repairs, and allows schools to improve air quality, comfort and health for students and teachers alike. The report, titled An Analysis of Planned Facilities Spending under ARP-ESSER Funding, includes qualitative interviews and quantitative analysis based on a data set of over 5,000 school districts’ spending plans; information from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., representing close to 75% of public-school students and approximately $83.1 billion in ESSER III funds, is in the report. Key findings include:
- Nearly half of the school districts are committing some funds to installing UV lights for disease mitigation; upgrading or improving HVAC systems; repairing systems to reduce health risks; and replacing windows, doors and roofs
- Schools are using $5.5 billion to improve air filtration, which is the second-highest category of spending behind staffing
- Of the over 2,000 school districts that planned to spend on facilities improvements, large school districts planned to spend the lowest percentage (an average of 22%) and small districts planned to spend the highest percentage (an average of 30%) of their total allocation
- In most cases, the districts that planned to spend on one category of facilities improvements, displayed a layered approach to addressing COVID-19 at a building infrastructure level
- District interviewees stressed the importance of having federal funds to invest in HVAC projects, which would otherwise be delayed or addressed in phases; interviewees noted that where HVAC upgrades had already taken place, energy usage and costs were able to kept to a minimum
Read the full report at www.usgbc.org.