MILWAUKEE — If you live, teach, attend or work in the Milwaukee Public School District, the school board wants to hear from you on how to allocate $506 million in federal funding. 

What You Need To Know

  • Milwaukee Public Schools received $506 million in federal funds 

  • The money comes from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER III

  • The district wants the public to weigh in on how that money should be spent

The $506 million windfall for MPS is from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, also known as ESSER.

The money the district received for this round of funding — ESSER III — was determined mainly by how many students in the district come from low income families.

There are some rules on how the money has to be spent. 

At least 20%, or  roughly $101 million needs to go toward  addressing “learning loss” — which happened during the coronavirus pandemic. 

There also has to be special attention paid to groups disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

For the remaining $405 million, there are five areas where that money can be spent: accelerated learning, health and wellness, facilities, technology and extra curricular engagement. 

During a town hall meeting at Riverside University High School, parents and others who live in the district participated in a budgeting activity to rank which of those areas are the most important. 

They also had specific ideas on what that money could go toward under each category. those more specific ideas included things like extended learning time for students, educational materials for things like art, music, and physical education, mental health support, healthy diet and nutrition, outdoor classrooms, improving athletic facilities and wi-fi hotspots for all students just to name a few. 

“We ranked 'health and wellness' number one," said Angela Harris, an MPS teacher and parent. "We talked about things like full time nurses for all schools, expanding mental health services for our students, we talked about facilities, upgrading things like sinks and paint."

“And then technology, hot spots for all, updated Chromebooks with larger screens and that are a little more durable than the ones that we currently have,” added Kristen Hinds, Principal at Dr. George Washington Carver Academy. 

Hinds also talked about extra curricular engagement, and putting money toward transportation for those activities. 

“Just providing that space for students to have engaging things to do, but linked to that is transportation. so often our students aren’t able to participate because they don’t have a way to get home,” Hinds said. 

Jilly Gokalgandhi, the school board representative for District 5 said all of these ideas from the community are being taken into consideration — and will be pitched to the full board when it decides how to spend those federal dollars.

“As a board director, my job is to advocate internally to the administration to make sure that the priorities that were reflected here today are reflected in our ESSER budget spend, which we’ll approve at the full board meeting,” Gokalgandhi said. 

The Milwaukee Public School District still wants to hear from you. You can head over to the district website to fill out a survey letting the board know how you think those federal dollars should be spent.