American public schools are vastly behind in modernization - with annual expenditures of more than $750 billion, they have manually complicated operations—from financial workflow to human resources to business analytics, and too many rely on analog processes in a digital world.

Luckily, the path to modernization has become easier thanks to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) provided during the pandemic. This package totaled $190 billion in federal stimulus funding—the equivalent of $3,500 for every American schoolchild. 

In a recent article for EdSurge, Managing Director Erin Covington shares the official guidelines on how the ESSER funding can be used, which has led to questions about how the dollars are being spent and accounted for. But there is a strict deadline. Erin says, “Schools must tap into ESSER no later than September 2024, which means the race is on for schools to find ways to use the money before they lose it.”

Read the full article here.