Of the 12 rural school districts analyzed in the study, all had accountability grades of a D or F prior to the pandemic and were primarily composed of African American students. A majority of those districts also had a minimum of 80% of its students living at or below the poverty line.
Through parent-oriented focus groups and data collection, researchers determined how school closures and staffing issues affected some of Mississippi's most vulnerable school districts.
“We knew COVID shifted everything and upended education, and we knew that particularly in rural communities and high need school districts, that this was going to likely create a significantly more difficult challenge for them,” said Kim Wiley, Education Policy Analyst and Project Coordinator at the Mississippi Center for Justice. “Based on the fact that there have always been a lot of resource inequities in these communities before the pandemic.”
The study focused on 4 key areas: internet access at home, learning loss, gaps in care for students with disabilities and social-emotional impacts.
What they found along the way was that many of the districts' historic underfunding has made the process of prioritizing where to spend COVID relief funds even more difficult.
“The largest portion of COVID relief funding was allocated for building improvements because there have been decades of underinvestment. They tried to take advantage of having this extra cash to address not just aesthetics, but actually things like air quality. The needs are so great, it’s difficult to prioritize where to spend it because you need everything.”
School districts have until September 30th of 2024 to spend federal COVID relief funds before they're returned.