Local schools seek share of federal stimulus

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced last week that California public schools and universities can apply immediately for $3.1 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars, but the move brought mixed reviews from one local school district.

The governor and the U.S. Department of Education announced April 17 that California was the first state in the nation to be approved for a share of the Recovery Act's State Fiscal Stabilization Fund monies.

The federal stimulus dollars should help ease the budget crunch threatening California schools with program cuts and teacher layoffs.

School districts can tap into the first installment of a total $4.9 billion in California funding, which includes $2.6 billion for K12 schools and $537 million for the California State University and University of California systems.

"When President Obama signed the Recovery Act, I pledged to quickly make sure California taps into every available dollar of federal funding and that we would put those dollars to work immediately and effectively," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "I am proud to say that California is the very first state to receive this money from the federal government and we are the first state to pass these dollars immediately to local school districts and protect teachers' jobs."

Donald Zimring, superintendent of Las Virgenes Unified School District, had mixed feelings about the infusion of federal money into state coffers.

"Clearly we are pleased that California was first in line to qualify for stimulus dollars," Zimring said. "We are still awaiting details for how much and what these funds are to be used for. Our staff took the weekend to review the federal compliance requirements, which are quite lengthy, but we are confident we will have no difficulty meeting those requirements."

School districts were urged to apply for the funds through an application process administered by the California Department of Education.

"My staff collaborated with the Schwarzenegger administration to create a simple online application for these stimulus funds," state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said. "Our goal is to get these funds out to our schools as soon as possible to protect jobs and help improve student achievement."

Secretary of Education Glen Thomas said California schools will be able to use the money "with significant flexibility" to protect jobs and programs and improve student performance.

Flexibility in school funding has been a high priority for Las Virgenes officials. Zimring and the LVUSD school board met in June 2008 with Schwarzenegger to encourage fewer limitations on how categorical funds are spent, at least for high-achieving school districts.

Categorical funds are streams of money earmarked for specific programs. Sometimes the money could be better spent elsewhere.

Lower socio-economic school districts receive extra funding for afterschool programs, remediation classes or reduced or free lunches. Since LVUSD meets standardized testing benchmarks each year, the district never sees the extra money.

Although Schwarzenegger agreed that a relaxation on categorical funding would help soothe the education crisis, legislators kept the funding rules intact.

Whether or not the school stimulus money will come with strings attached remains unknown.

"Our biggest challenge and concern is for people to understand that this is one-time money which does not fix or change the state's structural finance problem in terms of adequately funding education," Zimring said.

School district funding applications are available on the California Department of Education website at www.cde.ca.gov.