Pittsburgh Public Schools form committee to advise board about $100M federal covid cash

Parents, teacher, administrators and other Pittsburgh Public Schools leaders will advise the school board as it decides how to allocate more than $100 million in new federal coronavirus recovery money that’s coming to the district.

The school board on Wednesday approved forming a 21-member Public Stakeholder Advisory Committee to provide the recommendations about how to spend the money, which is coming from the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion package President Joe Biden signed in March that includes $122 billion for schools.

“Not less” than 20% of each district’s allocation must be used to address learning loss because of the pandemic. In Pittsburgh’s case, this amounts to about $20 million.

Districts have more discretion about how the rest of the money can be spent. The committee formed Wednesday will make recommendations to the school board about how it should be allocated.

In 2020, the district received $11.1 million to spend on new student and staff devices, personal protective equipment and sanitary supplies. In May, the district announced it will spend about $50.1 million in the second round of federal funding on air purifiers, building and network upgrades, summer programming, and student and staff devices and several other items.

The $100 million is the district’s share of the latest round of federal funding that was approved to address the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The committee the board formed Wednesday will be made up of nine parents, selected by each of the nine school board members from the board districts; four members appointed by Superintendent Anthony Hamlet that include two Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers and two Pittsburgh Administrators Association representatives; five members from internal district groups like its Student Advisory and Early Childhood Education councils, Local Task Force and Equity Advisory Panel; and three school board appointed by board President Sylvia Wilson.

“This committee will complement our efforts to make transformational change through deep collaboration, intensely focused on the needs of those in our schools, who engage with students and families daily,” Hamlet said in a statement.

The district is promising an “extensive community engagement process” starting in June and a proposal for how the money will be spent will be presented to the board in August, when it will then be sent to the state Department of Education for approval.

The committee is similar to a task force city officials formed to advise Pittsburgh City Council about how the $355 million the city is set to receive will be spent.

The Pittsburgh Recovery Task Force consists of council President Theresa Kail-Smith, President Pro-Tem Ricky Burgess, Finance Committee Chair R. Daniel Lavelle and representatives from Mayor Bill Peduto’s administration.

Council members and the mayor’s office have said there will also be public meetings before the allocations are made.