At a Tuesday night Lake Pend Oreille School Board board meeting, trustees heard a presentation by Chief Financial Officer Lisa Hals on upcoming financial issues for the district.

As of the end of November, the district officially paid off the last of its debt for a 20-year lease permit agreement for the district office building, Hals said. Further, for the first time since the district began in July of 1999, there will be no supplemental levy for every other off year in March.

Several parts of the district’s budget will be affected by Idaho Legislature decisions this session, Hals said. While the district will be closely watching state-level decisions, one important update for the district was the announcement of a new COVID-19 relief package, known as the CRRSA Act.

The monies allocated to the district, Hals said, will be close to $2.6 million. By comparison, the district received around $569,000 from the CARES Act.

That funding will expire in September of 2023, Hals said, and includes 15 allowances for expenditures. What differentiates the CRRSA money is that it requires an additional detailed accounting that includes measuring and addressing learning loss, she said.

Something else unique about the CRRSA funding, she said, is that the money may be used to supplant other funds — meaning the district would have the ability to save money originally budgeted for certain allowable expenses by using the federal aid instead.

“That’s very unusual,” she said. “Usually, you must supplement. It’s in addition.”

Superintendent Tom Albertson said the district is now looking toward methods to identify and address loss of learning in the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent tests in kindergarten through third grade for the Idaho Reading Indicator showed students improved their reading skills by around 13.8%, with roughly 48-49% of K-3rd grade students reading at grade level at the beginning of the year to roughly 62.8% reading at grade level as of the most recent tests, Albertson said.

That progress is a good sign, he said, however looking at data from the 2018-2019 school year, students improved by 14.84%.

“Bottom line is, you can say it’s only 1%, but I do know that students have had their learning disrupted,” Albertson said.

Overall, Albertson said, the district was able to be fairly consistent in providing instruction to students. However, some students were not going to school in person, and the district is estimating roughly 7-10% of students to return to in-person learning. Still others, he said, had disruptions to their learning because of quarantining or other changes.

COVID-19 infections have also lowered somewhat in the county and the school district, respectively, Albertson said.

In Bonner County, the seven-day rolling average for COVID-19 cases had dropped from 57.5 on Jan Monday to 41.2 on Tuesday.

As of Tuesday, the district had four active cases, with three being Sandpoint High School students and one a Sandpoint Middle School student.

Albertson also reported that all employees who had expressed an interest in getting a COVID-19 vaccination had now either received their first dose, or were scheduled to receive one.

The exact percentage of staff who requested the vaccination isn’t entirely clear because of the district’s temporary and seasonal employees as well as substitute teachers, he said. However, it is likely close to 70%, with the total number somewhere between 450 to 500 individuals.

“Some of our employees that got the first shot will be due, I think, this week [for their second],” he said.

Student enrollment has also increased slightly, Albertson said. There are now 3,532 students, which is an increase of around 35 students.

There has also been an increase in the number of students attending in-person classes instead of the Idaho Digital Learning Academy, however those students were already counted as enrolled with the district.

The district also recognized the LPOSD Nutrition Services Department and director Bobbie Coleman for their work ensuring students could continue to eat free meals in school, and for adjusting to COVID-19 safety measures including having students eat in classrooms.