Lehighton Area School District is projected to receive $4.78 million as part of the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary Relief package, and administrators on Monday night outlined how the money could be spent.

Payments are spread out over the life of the grant, which could run as late as Sept. 30, 2024.

“Our total changes from week to week,” Assistant to the Superintendent Tim Tkach said during a finance committee meeting Monday night. “You’re constantly playing with numbers and trying to figure this out.”

Of the $4.78 million, 20%, or $956,442, has to be used to address lost instructional time throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

From the remaining $3.82 million, Tkach said Lehighton has $1.54 million pegged to pay salary and benefits for existing positions in 2022-23 and 2023-24 including five teachers, two social workers, a middle school guidance counselor, a school psychologist and two part-time professionals.

When it comes to addressing learning loss, Tkach said the district plans to use several assessment tools, such as DIBELS at the K-2 level and the state CDT classroom diagnostic testing in grades 3-12 to gauge what remediation students need.

“It’s going to be a floating target,” Tkach said. “The CDT assessments are given three times a year. At the beginning of the year, we can hopefully get students caught up, but we’ll also need to address students who fall behind in the middle of the year so they don’t keep falling backward.”

Also budgeted over the next three years are 1,200 student Chromebooks, 600 student iPads and 80 staff Chromebooks.

“That will give us a total of 2,100 Chromebooks districtwide and would cover us from grades 3-12 plus a reserve on the side so if somebody has a broken one, we can get that sent out and fixed so that way there’s no downtime,” Tkach said.

Eventually, when students reach third grade, they will have a new Chromebook they will use through seventh grade before getting another new one for their final five years of school.

Tkach said parents would likely have the option of purchasing three years of accidental warranty coverage for $45.

Other ways Lehighton plans to use the ARP ESSER grant by September 2024 include:

• $131,183 for curriculum

• $652,955 for software programs and licenses

• $63,000 for mental health risk assessments professional services and evaluations

• $182,400 for two years of salaries and benefits for the two existing school police officers

• $390,643 for maintenance agreements to monitor and maintain the heating, ventilation and air conditioning, air quality and treatments to the Loop System for all district buildings, and security and alarm systems for all district buildings

• $54,000 for a three-year mail-in damage service agreement for all Chromebooks

• $35,000 for an aerial lift for the Elementary Center needed to access the HVAC equipment, lights, IT areas, internet access points, etc.; a new generator for the middle school, and humidity sensors and control ability for the buildings

• $133,600 for licenses for access points, switches and Instant Replacements

• $29,900 for servers, domain controllers, and Chromecasts

• $87,868 for Study Island and other research-based programs to be determined based on student needs

• $592,800 on salaries and benefits for teachers and staff for after before, during and after school remediation programs

• $120,000 for summer enrichment and learning camps

• $155,774 for purchased services and technical services.