ESSER Success Stories

Districts used federal pandemic recovery funds to help their students get back on track. What’s next? 

In this article, ASBJ looks at how three districts across the nation—Oregon’s Bethel School District, Indiana’s Indianapolis Public Schools, and New Jersey’s Hoboken Public Schools—used ESSER dollars and what they face now that those funds are no longer available.

January 15, 2025

A BETHEL TEACHER LEADS LANGUAGE ARTS INSTRUCTION.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BETHEL SCHOOL DISTRICT.

A massive influx of federal funds designed to help schools weather the effects of the pandemic expired in January, leaving districts across the U.S. dealing with a variety of thorny issues almost five years after COVID-19 shut down campuses nationwide.

In three separate bills passed from March 2020 to March 2021, Congress appropriated $190 billion to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) to support local and state responses to the pandemic. The largest allocation—$122.7 billion from the American Rescue Act—had to be obligated by Sept. 30, 2024, and spent by Jan. 28, 2025.
Districts have used the funds to address a variety of needs—learning recovery, support for student mental and physical health, facilities, additional technology, and additional staff—that existed before and were exacerbated by the pandemic. 

In this article, ASBJ looks at how three districts across the nation—Oregon’s Bethel School District, Indiana’s Indianapolis Public Schools, and New Jersey’s Hoboken Public Schools—used ESSER dollars and what they face now that those funds are no longer available.

BETHEL SCHOOL DISTRICT
When Kraig Sproles took his first superintendent’s job in Bethel in the fall of 2021, Oregon was in the midst of one of the longest school closures in the nation, with students moving between in-person and virtual classes for almost two years. 
Bethel, with 5,000 students, is the smaller of the two districts that serve Eugene, the second-largest city in the state. As growth has moved to other parts of the city, Bethel’s enrollment has declined by 15% over the past eight years, forcing the school board to close an elementary school this year. Meanwhile, family needs have increased, with more than 70% of the district’s students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunches.

“The ESSER dollars were super, super helpful for us to lean into things like high-dosage tutoring and providing additional resources directly to families who are struggling to serve the needs of students,” Sproles says. “The difficult part is the funds were short-lived, so we tried to be disciplined and not hire staff with those dollars because we knew the money would, of course, sunset.” 

Sproles says the district’s efforts, which included additional programming before and after school and during the summer, were “successful to an extent.” He says the ESSER funding helped “accelerate relationships with students” but noted the district is “still seeing the social, emotional, and behavioral health impacts and academic impacts” of COVID.

Bethel Food Pantry
TAKING STOCK OF A DISTRICT FOOD PANTRY.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BETHEL PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

The district runs five food pantries and provides additional resources for family therapy and other types of supports, such as clothing closets. “As social structures were laid bare during the pandemic, schools stepped into those, and now we’re filling that role,” he says. “We have a greatly expanded scope of work at a time when our resources are greatly reduced, so we have a creep of mission because we’re filling in the gaps in ways social services used to fill them in.”

Oregon’s schools are funded by the state and federal government, with local dollars limited to instructional levies that voters must pass—something that is unlikely in Bethel. Like other low-wealth districts, Bethel is pushing the legislature for more funding while dipping into its reserves—$2.2 million this year—to avoid layoffs.

Typically, Sproles says, Bethel hires about 40 licensed teachers—about 10% of its instructional staff—annually. In 2024-25, the district hired only 10, filling the rest of the vacancies with temporary one-year, non-union contracts.

“We’re not facing a fiscal cliff, but it definitely is a fiscal slope,” Sproles says, noting class sizes have increased “at a time when the needs of our students have also outpaced our ability to serve them.” 

While he describes the district’s relationship with the union as “extremely positive,” Sproles worries that tension and strikes that have plagued other districts in the state could lead to labor issues in Bethel “if something is not done” about funding. In November, the school board adopted a series of legislative priorities centered on accurate and adequate education resources, and district and community leaders have engaged in an intense lobbying effort.

“We need a funding formula that accounts for all of the services we’re now providing,” Sproles says. “Many of the things I listed that we’re doing now are not in my funding formula, but we’re doing them because it’s what’s best for our kids.”

INDIANAPOLIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Like many large urban districts, Indianapolis Public Schools has attempted multiple reform efforts over the past several decades amid academic struggles and dramatic enrollment declines. But it has never done so with the flood of federal dollars that ESSER provided.

Enter “Rebuilding Stronger.”

Deputy Superintendent Andrew Strope says the multiyear reorganization plan, which included a transition to a pre-K-5, 6-8 grade model, is designed to improve tutoring and academic supports as well as increase access to programs such as band, world language, and other higher-level courses.

“ESSER was a huge help in helping us be able to pull this off,” Strope says, noting the funds were used for recruiting and retention bonuses, technology upgrades, investments in musical instruments, STEM science kits, art supplies, staff training, summer school, and tutoring. “We’ve been able to leverage those dollars with something we’ve been eyeing as a team and as a community to make changes that will help us over the long term.”

Indianapolis Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony
CELEBRATING THE OPENING OF A NEW SCHOOL.
PHOTO COURTESY OF INDIANAPOLIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Strope says “Rebuilding Stronger,” which was approved by the school board in November 2022 after a two-year planning process, is designed to make the student experience across the district more equitable. District officials believe that is key in a state that has heavily embraced choice; Indianapolis has 68 traditional public school systems and 30 charters.

“That choice was not equitable across our system,” Strope says, noting that only 34% of traditional middle school students had access to band, orchestra, and world language programs and only 41% could take Algebra 1 when the district started to implement “Rebuilding Stronger” in 2023. “A lot of this is about trying to make our offerings aligned with what families want and really trying to be competitive.”

By moving to a dedicated grades pre-K-5 and 6-8 model, Strope says the district will be able to achieve the economy of scale needed to offer those upper-level classes to all middle school students. At the elementary level, all students now have access to computer science and music classes.

Indianapolis school library
A BEEKEEKER DEMONSTRATES HARVESTING HONEY FROM BEEHIVES.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF INDIANAPOLIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

In May 2023, voters approved a $410 million capital referendum that will result in renovations and upgrades to 23 elementary and middle schools. But due to ongoing “cash flow challenges” and the desire to level enrollment across grade levels, six small schools were closed this fall.

Like other districts, Indianapolis continues to face cash flow challenges that were present prior to COVID, and Strope believes finances will remain tight in the foreseeable future.

“ESSER funds have really been tremendous for us because we’ve been able to make investments in high-quality curriculum and tutoring and funding this massive change effort,” he says. “Hopefully, this effort is putting us in a better position to weather some fiscal challenges that are coming up.”

HOBOKEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
In 2015, when Christine Johnson became superintendent in Hoboken, located just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, the city was nearing the end of a gentrification process that had upended its demographics.

But, as Johnson notes, the school district was still considered “a joke” as students struggled academically. After years of decline, the district was down to just 3,000 students, as its five traditional schools competed with three charters in a one-square-mile city. 

Today, the Hoboken Public School District has 3,700 students and has grown by almost 5% this year. The district is outperforming the state and national averages in reading and math, and the number of AP College Board Scholars has grown from seven to 77 in eight years. In Johnson’s first year in the district, one charter school student enrolled at Hoboken High School; today, the number is 44.

Hoboken students playing instruments
STUDENTS CONCENTRATE IN A MUSIC CLASS.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HOBOKEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

“It’s a really interesting phenomenon,” she says. “The district has just kind of put its head down and worked tirelessly to earn the respect of the community, and the whole narrative has changed. Enrollment has increased exponentially. Student achievement numbers have increased exponentially. We have no issues with staffing. Districts all around us are struggling trying to make sure that teachers are in classrooms, and we’re getting hundreds of applications for every teaching position.”

Johnson attributes this success, in large part, to the district’s COVID response and the ESSER funding that helped keep schools open. During lockdown from March to June 2020, the district offered direct instruction online to students, then reopened in the fall and has not closed since. Students who opted not to go in person were offered direct instruction from teachers who were hired to work remotely.

“We had no learning loss,” Johnson says. “We actually showed multiple grade-level gains that have continued after COVID, and we believe that’s because students were in school and receiving direct instruction. The pandemic actually helped us.” 

ESSER funds, Johnson says, allowed the school district to reopen and operate. All HVAC units were cleaned, and new air filtration systems were placed in every classroom. Federal dollars were spent on acceleration and tutoring programs across the district as well as on an academic support center at the high school. Additional staff were hired during COVID to ensure class sizes were smaller because it “wasn’t easy to socially distance in a regular-sized classroom with 18 to 20 children.”

Students stand in front of plants
STUDENTS SHOW SOME OF THE PLANTS GROWN IN A HYDROPONICS LAB.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HOBOKEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Johnson says, “We were so far below the national average in 2016-17, and while we were making progress before COVID, the decision to stay open and the ESSER funds we had to help us do that was really impactful. Keeping the doors open had a tremendous impact on children.”

The enrollment numbers remain encouraging, she says, noting that many people moved to Hoboken “because they wanted their kids to be in school during COVID and they’ve stayed.” But now that the ESSER funds have expired, the district has been forced to make some hard choices. 

In almost every case, Johnson says, the choice has been to stay the course. Taxes increased 14% in 2024-25 to avoid cutting positions. The board also increased teacher salaries during the last round of union negotiations, in large part because staff agreed to work in-person on-site during the pandemic.

“It was a priority of the district and the board of education to maintain the programs we’re offering and the staff that we have,” Johnson says. “It’s nice to have a good success story.”

Glenn Cook (glenncook117@gmail.com), a contributing editor to American School Board Journal, is a freelance writer and photographer in Northern Virginia.