School districts nationwide are facing a shortage of tens of thousands of teachers and are scrambling to find new ways to recruit and retain talent. But there’s one underutilized solution: federal stimulus money from the national COVID crisis.

The $190 billion Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund represents a lifeline for schools looking to tackle this issue in creative ways. Part of a larger stimulus package rolled out by the federal government in 2021, ESSER has few official guidelines on how the funds should be spent, but they need to be tapped no later than September 2024.

Managing Director Erin Covington recently wrote an article that was featured in Education Week, where she discusses 6 ways that the ESSER funds can help with the teacher shortage. She says, "The nearly $190 billion provided by the federal stimulus bills known as the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund makes for a sugar rush with a potentially hard crash: Schools must use the money for one-time expenses by September 2024."

Read the full article here.