Louisville-area private schools will get nearly $6 million from CARES Act

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville-area private schools will receive $5.9 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act as they prepare for the start of the 2020-21 school year, according to records provided by Jefferson County Public Schools.

The vast majority of that funding, which will be spent by JCPS in coordination with private institutions, will flow to the Archdiocese of Louisville, which oversees 49 Catholic schools with more than 15,000 students and is set to get $4.8 million from the CARES Act.

The Christian Academy of Louisville, which has three campuses in Jefferson County with nearly 2,000 students, will receive the second-highest award among Louisville’s private schools with $583,367.

Once private schools receive their shares of CART Act funding, JCPS will be left with $29.7 million from the $2.2 trillion federal stimulus. District officials have already indicated that that amount will not cover costs associated with reopening schools next month, such as purchasing disposable masks and Chromebooks.

Louisville-area private schools and some homeschools will get federal stimulus funding based on their enrollments rather than the numbers of Title I students they serve, which is the case in states like Indiana based on its interpretation of the CARES Act. The U.S. Department of Education revised its guidance on June 25, giving school districts the choice of distributing funds based on either private schools’ enrollments or the numbers of low-income students served.

However, JCPS spokesman Mark Hebert said Kentucky’s largest school district chose to continue calculating private schools’ shares of CARES Act money on enrollment because it had already notified them of how much they should expect in stimulus funding.

Distributing funding based on Title I enrollments would have also jeopardized stimulus funding for JCPS schools that do not qualify as Title I schools, he said.

“There would have wound up being some schools in our own district that we would not have been able to pass down the funding to for Chromebooks, hotspots, masks,” Hebert said.

Superintendents for the Archdiocese of Louisville and CAL said basing funding on overall enrollment was the right decision.

“I think the intent was every student, every school,” said Leisa Schulz, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese. “... Our public school colleagues also recognize their whole system was impacted.”

“It’s been a big debate, and for us to have campuses in Kentucky and Indiana, it’s interesting to see how the different debates happen,” CAL Superintendent Darin Long said. “... I do appreciate that Kentucky kind of recognized that this is affecting all families and all children.”

Much of the CARES Act money being distributed to private schools is expected to pay for things like Chromebooks, licenses for online learning tools, professional development for teachers on distance learning, personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies, according to participation forms obtained from JCPS in response to an open records request.

“The majority of our schools are looking at items such as Chromebooks, iPads, laptops that the students will use for their studies and specifically to help our schools equip all of our students with devices because it continues to be likely that we may experience intermittent times over this school year and perhaps beyond depending on the course of the virus,” Schulz said.

Long said CAL is looking to increase its distribution of Chromebooks so all students can be prepared to “pivot quickly” to distance learning if needed.

CAL is also planning to use its share of CARES Act funding to outfit its HVAC systems with ultraviolet lights in hopes of combatting the novel coronavirus, Long said. A price estimate was not available because costs have not been finalized, according to a spokesman.

“We've really looked at onsite safety enhancements that we can do on our campuses,” Long said.

As schools prepare to start the 2020-21 school year, a second round of stimulus funding may be on the way to help mitigate reopening costs.

The White House and Senate Republicans are working on a package with an expected $1.3 trillion price tag after the Democrat-led House passed a stimulus plan worth more than $3 trillion, according to CNN.

“If there is another round of stimulus that will make or give us options to keep kids even safer, then I definitely think it would be something that schools would be interested in and would use wisely,” Long said.

A second wave of federal funding should also include families that have struggled with job losses or underemployment caused by COVID-19 restrictions, Schulz said.

Without relief, enrollments at private schools may drop if families are forced to cut their budgets to make ends meet.

“Schools are still working with families in terms of making arrangements with tuitions,” Schulz said. “… We are always concerned about our families, and we will continue to help as best we can.”

Some private schools also got help from loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, including Catholic schools like St. X High School, Trinity High School and Sacred Heart Academy. Those three received between $2 million and $5 million each, according to federal data.

Schulz said the loans were appropriate because without them, many would have been out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic and at a time when traditional parish fundraisers were canceled. She cited afterschool care programs as one area where employees benefited from the loans.

“Those funds went out to people in their paychecks so that they could continue to draw their salaries and receive their benefits,” she said.

CARES Act funding for private schools from JCPS