At the May 15 SCUCISD board of trustees meeting, Assistant Superintendent Kelly Kovacs presented the board with its 2025-26 school year funding plan under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The act, known as ESSA, helps fund academic support for the district and its Title I campuses. The district’s planning amount for 2025-26 is based on the $1.93 million received for 2024-25, though Kovacs said this number may be “unpredictable” going forward.
What’s happening
ESSA funding from the U.S. Department of Education is handed out via Title 1A, Title II, Title III and Title IV, which support the following initiatives:
- Title 1A: Professional positions like interventionists and instructional coaches, as well as supplemental instructional materials.
- Title II: Professional learning for teachers and administrators, along with stipends for teacher liaisons and mentor teacher training.
- Title III: Materials and professional development for Emergent Bilingual students and English Language learners.
- Title IV: Arts enrichment opportunities and college prep materials.
Why it matters
Kovacs told the board that the U.S. Department of Education, which funds the grant, may significantly alter funding potentially as soon as fiscal year 2026.
Part of the changes, she said, were Title III for Emergent Bilingual supports going away completely within the next year, as well as the cutting of Title II and Title IV funding.
“We may have this [$1.93 million] for one year, but we anticipate that even if we do have that amount for 2025-26, it would be significantly cut or gone altogether by the following year,” Kovacs said.
In the event of future funding cuts, Kovacs said the district would prioritize “direct impacts to student achievement” above all else, using an example of having to cut out educational field trips funded through ESSA.
“We love educational field trips,” Kovacs said. “We love [for] our kids to be able to go to those, but [instructional materials] would come before field trips, so we would have to start prioritizing that way.”
An elimination of Title I funding would leave the district looking at around $850,000 to $900,000 in staff expenses without a funding source, Kovacs said.
Superintendent Paige Meloni added that this is a “time of uncertainty” and would have to go through an attrition process with those positions in case of funding cuts.
“This is one of the number one areas of [faculty concern], people are afraid for their jobs ... if they’re paid out of a federal funding source,” Meloni said.
Next steps
Public feedback is available for the district’s 2025-26 ESSA draft on its federal programs webpage. Feedback will continue through May 30 before the district submits its ESSA application.
