St. Louis County Schools Receive Nearly $2 Million in Cares Act Funds

DULUTH, Minn.– St. Louis County had recieved $24.5 million from the federal CARES Act. This week, some of those funds have been given to schools throughout the county.

St. Louis County is giving $1.8 million in aid among 14 school districts to help cover the unforeseen costs of their finances due to the pandemic.

One of those districts is Proctor Public Schools, who received nearly 160,000 dollars in aid from the county.

“This money really has been an important help for us,” said Proctor Superintendent John Engelking.

The funds will help the district buy supplies like PPE, signage, and child care. Along with technology resources and expanded internet access.

Engelking says proctor isn’t the only school district that’s struggling during this time but says these grants are an important helping hand.

“It’s just a something we didn’t anticipate and no one anticipated having to buy hand sanitizer by the pallet,” said Engelking. “All of these things that we have to have certainly wasn’t in the cards for our funding as we began the school year.”

In Duluth, Superintendent John Magas says the school is ready to put their $725,000 in funding to help provide more resources to help students and teachers. Including hiring college students to help tutor high schoolers to try and take the workload off of teachers who are stretched thin.

“It’s incredibly important. Right now we know that student engagement is really, really challenging,” said Magas.

Along with adding more safety supplies, Magas says a key use for the funding will be helping to reach students who are struggling while they learn from home.

“We’ve invested really deeply in additional devices for our students but we need to also think about Wi-Fi connectivity, making sure that we have all of those supports in place so we can make our distance learning even more robust,” said Magas.

Duluth Public Schools will be working on a plan to figure out how to best use their funds. A plan will be put together by the superintendent’s office and then be presented to the Duluth School Board.