Special Called Clay County BOE Meeting For $1.4 Million In Funding

The Clay County Board of Education needs to budget $1.4 million in ESSER 2.0 funding by March 1.

This led the board to approve meeting on February 18 in a special called planning meeting. Clay County Director of Schools Matt Eldridge said the system got 45 days to decide how to spend this funding.

“We’re gonna give new interactive panels for all the teachers, all of them get that, I think we’ll have about 40 we still have to get,” Eldridge said. “Maybe portables, I know we’d all talked about that at one time. New cameras, we try to replace a few every year, maybe do all of them now because we’ll have that money. That’s just a few ideas.”

Eldridge said the state would like for the funding to be spent on COVID, but can be spent on maintenance and other things from among 10 categories. He said during conversations with Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, it is likely Clay County Schools will get another lump of funding.

“We need to get together and think about some things we’ve talked to our administration about,” Eldridge said. “Some things we can do to help the teachers and the kids. We may get another lump after this, not even spent the first and she said you may get more. Now, we don’t know a dollar amount yet but if we do, that’s looking in the Spring for us to look at too.”

Board Member Nathan Sherrell asked Eldridge if anything was discussed regarding potential cuts to school funding.

“They said in the past, what’s been pretty traditional is if you give extra money in one spot, you take it away somewhere else,” Eldridge said. “But you’re never told it’s going to be taken away. She said, ‘not to my knowledge,’ she didn’t say definite no or definite yes.”

The special called planning meeting will be on February 18, at 6:00 PM.