When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, Megan Smith pulled her daughter out of school. She has asthma and wants to protect her parents, her 60-year-old and her 69-year-old, who live with her, two children, a younger sister, three dogs, a lizard and a turtle, from the virus. I was.
Smith’s 13-year-old son was already homeschooled. But after homeschooling him for a year and a half with his 12-year-old daughter, who has autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), homeschooling hasn’t worked for any of the symptoms. It became clear. they. Her son struggled to see her as a teacher. Both needed more than she could provide at her home. Smith also had to go back to work.
“We ran out of board games and card games and ordered puzzles,” said Smith. “It was good, but after a while it just wasn’t good anymore. It was kind of mundane and exhausting, and it became an extra chore to find something exciting for everyone in the house that day.” .
The opportunity to enroll two children in “micro-schooling” (small vocational schools designed specifically for a particular group of students, in this case “nervous-diverging” youth), last fall It was something to change. But it wouldn’t have been financially possible without her two $5,000 grants her children received from the Transformation of Opportunities for Toddlers and Students (TOTS) program in Nevada.
“He really enjoys it. It’s a place where he feels comfortable and safe,” Smith said of her son. “It’s really hard for someone on the spectrum to be in a space with more than a handful of people.
The Smith children are one of 1,000 children with disabilities in Nevada who have received a $5,000 grant from TOTS funded by federal COVID-19 relief funds. Recipients can use the money to address medical care, pandemic-induced educational setbacks, assistive technology, basic living expenses, and other uses they choose.
Grant recipients must sign a consent form under penalty of perjury to use TOTS funds only for permissible expenses, but the state checks how they spend the money. Is not …
“Having recipients sign these contracts gives the country peace of mind and gives families the flexibility to use the funds as needed.” Eric Jimenez, chief policy deputy at the State Treasury Department, wrote in an email:
initial $5 million set aside for executed programs Out in just 3 days. Given the program’s popularity, some proponents of school choice and students with disabilities believe that TOTS will prioritize families most affected by the pandemic and reduce the bureaucratic burden typically associated with emergency distribution. It avoided some of the biggest hurdles and could set an example for other states to follow, he said. It provided relief funds and enabled families to use the funds for a range of services, including education.
Increase in school selection methods
school selection method spiked During the pandemic, Nevada’s TOTS program is Advocated by school choice advocates To allow parents to use public funds to pay for private schools and other private services.Other educational advocacy groups, such as the Southern Area Board of Education and the Parents Union of America, advocate TOTS. promising model To help recover the families who need it most Academic Impact of the Pandemic.
“During the pandemic and the post-pandemic situation, all families were clearly impacted significantly in terms of their ability to meet their children’s educational needs, but families with special needs faced the most difficult situations. We were definitely at the forefront in terms of people who were there, and the challenge is exacerbated by the pandemic,” said Don Soifer, founder and president of Nevada Action for School Options, a public policy research nonprofit. says.
New Hampshire and South Carolina are also using federal COVID-19 relief dollars to fund private school choice programs through the distribution of scholarships and grants, Ben Erwin said. US Board of Education. But the program in South Carolina later unconstitutional.
“What we are seeing is more and more states embarking on expanding private school selection,” said Irwin.
Nevada’s TOTS program was unique in that it was funded by federal COVID-19 relief funds allocated for state and local use, rather than federal COVID-19 relief funds for schools. said Christine MT Pitts, Director of Impact and Communications, Center on Reinventing. public education.
“The fact that it’s not the K-12 bucket of money is important because it means you’re freeing up the K-12 bucket of money to spend on other things,” Pitts said. “By using buckets of state and local financial recovery funds, we’re saying leaders across the state are building grounds around these student outcomes.”
Additional $7 million approved
Pandemic-Related Learning Disabilities Low-income households disproportionately affected, handicapped childIt is unclear how much of TOTS funds went to children with disabilities from low-income families. The state is collecting data on some of the beneficiaries who live in low-income households, but it won’t be complete until all the funds are distributed, Jimenez said.
“From a policy perspective, one of the reasons the program became so popular was that there was no lengthy process of collecting application data in advance, so eligibility for the program was simply determined by children with special needs. It was a problem,” says Soifer.president of Nevada Actions on School Choices“There was an understanding that during the pandemic, families with children with special needs needed help.”
The Nevada Legislature has since approved an additional $7 million for the program, including $2 million for children with disabilities in foster care. As of Nov. 14, the Treasury Department had distributed a total of about $9 million to her more than 1,800 children, Jimenez said.
“In the context of the pandemic, there was an understanding that families with children with special needs needed help.”
“We are the state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, and children with disabilities in Nevada are often in low-income households. This money really made a difference.” [for families who] Maybe I had no income from other sources, or maybe I finally got my job back, but the pay was low,” Jimenez said.
Individuals with disabilities receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Accumulate $2,000 or more in savings You run the risk of your benefits being suspended. This makes it difficult for young people to save money for the future and for families to save for necessary services.
However, Nevada grants were distributed to tax-exempt ABLE savings accounts dedicated to people with disabilities. Unlike a regular savings account, an ABLE account does not reduce a beneficiary’s eligibility for programs such as Medicaid or disability benefits. Federal law enacted in 2014 allows states to Establish an ABLE account program. As of mid-November, just over 1.5% of those eligible had opened accounts statewide, according to Dante Allen, executive director of CalABLE, California’s ABLE program.
Nevada requires recipients to have an ABLE account to receive the grant, spurring a significant increase in new accounts. As of 2019, fewer than 100 eligible individuals are enrolled in Nevada’s ABLE program, 1,200 employees as of 2021.
Courtesy of Ashley Campbell
Layla Campbell, 14
“It’s really genius and I think that’s the future of Able,” Allen said. “Other states are looking very closely at this opportunity and want to be able to directly help people with disabilities plan for their future economics, and to raise awareness of the program as a whole.”
in the month before the grant program official announcement In October 2021, a network of disability advocacy groups, educators and nonprofits helped reach out to families. Nevada Action for School Options shared information about the program in a newsletter, held his workshops on setting up ABLE accounts for families, and called in if problems arose.
Ashley Campbell, chief of staff at Nevada Action for School Options, helped the family with a question. Her 14-year-old daughter, Layla, also received TOTS funding.
Campbell, who used the TOTS grant to enroll Layla in vocational school, was considering taking another job to pay for Layla’s education. Like the Smith children, Layla also struggled with traditional school and homeschooling because of her disability. But since starting vocational school, made possible by the program, she has blossomed, Campbell said. Now I have time to think about how I was affected.
“She was in fifth grade when the pandemic hit, and now she’s in eighth grade,” Campbell said. “It takes a long time for a child to have uncertainty in learning.”
***
Elizabeth Flavinca is a Texan born and raised and currently in charge of health and environment in Costa Rica. She previously covered children’s health and mental health for MedPage Today.
