Elmore County Schools senior coordinator for secondary education Tremeca Jackson believes the school system may receive Federal Impact Aid funding.
“If the students are children of civilians that work on federal property or the students’ parents are military, I fill out an application and submit it by the end of this month,” Jackson said. “If we have a certain percentage of students in that category, we could get several thousands of dollars from the federal government that go back into our school system.”
According to the U.S. Department of Education, funding for the program has exceeded $1 billion since 2002.
“With that money. we can buy resources or whatever we need to provide the best education for our children,” she said.
According to Jackson, the county has not applied for this funding the past several years, but due to the growing population she believes there are enough students in the system to qualify for those funds.
“The forms are all coming in,” she said. “We have 12,000 kids. We will not get all 12,000 forms. We’ll get 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 forms back. I go through each one and if they are not related they go in one pile.”
Another project Jackson will work on this school year that involves data is the 2020 Census.
“What some people do not realize is the school system will miss out on a lot of funds if everyone is not counted accordingly,” she said. “If we do not have our children counted adequately, we may not get enough federal funds for things like Head Start and child nutrition programs. There are several different programs tied to education.”
Jackson said the school system’s plan is to educate its students.
“That is the road to the parents — bringing awareness to students as to why the Census is important,” she said. “We may even open up some school sites to parents who do not have technology at home so they can complete the Census online.”
Jackson recently helped the school system secure an infusion of money from an Alabama Department of Youth Services matching grant.
“It is a $30,000 grant,” she said. “Fifteen thousand was from Youth Services and $15,000 from the county (school system). It allowed us to really key in on at-risk students to try to reduce repeat offenders.”
Jackson said repeat offenders are not sent home on suspension. Those students are required to attend Elmore County Alternative Programs (ECAP).
“When people make mistakes there are consequences, but we want to rehab them and educate them,” she said. “We want to teach them to make good decisions so moving forward they do not repeat the same behavior.”
The school system purchased social and emotional learning software which is available to all students in the system and is required of students who find themselves at ECAP.
“Children deal with things not even tied to the school system like divorce, depression, mental health and other factors,” Jackson said. “Those affect the learning process. For our students who have to go to the alternative school, this computer component helps them handle life’s challenges.”
She also said a portion of that money has paid for guest speakers, other software and programs used to meet the emotional needs of students.
