Congress passed a historic economic relief package, the American Rescue Plan, which will provide critical funding to supports students and help alleviate suffering felt by millions of Americans.
The new American Rescue Plan includes major funding to help schools recover from the COVID pandemic. The $1.9 trillion package includes funding to be directed to K-12 and higher education in each state, and NEA has calculated that Virginia’s share is just more than $3 billion.. There can be no doubt that funding is reaching our Commonwealth to address the mitigation concerns.
Our public schools and institutions of higher education can use these and other funds in the American Rescue Plan:
o To hire more teachers, paraeducators,
custodians, nurses and counselors,
o To implement safety protocols and acquire PPE,
o
To improve
ventilation
and
HVAC systems,
o To help students deal
with incredible trauma and lost opportunities to
learn they’ve
endured this past year,
o To put devices and the
internet in the
hands of students who have been locked
out of online learning, and
o To feed
hungry students and provide assistance for homeless
students.
This federal legislation will undoubtedly alleviate some of our nation’s immense suffering, but there is still much work ahead to fully recover from the worst crisis to hit this country in more than a century — and to build back something better.
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