North Country schools are receiving millions of dollars from the last two stimulus packages, to help alleviate COVID-19 expenses and help students bounce back from a year lost to the pandemic.Well, most of them are. Two North Country school districts — Long Lake, and Indian Lake, in Hamilton County, are not getting any federal stimulus money, because they don’t fit into a particular federal formula.

Long Lake Central School is tiny: one building, 70 kids, K-12. Noelle Short is the superintendent and principal. For months, she’s been fighting a wonky, bureaucratic battle to try and secure federal stimulus funding for Long Lake Central School District. Long Lake and Indian Lake were two of only ten schools that were excluded from funding.

“I felt like I was telling this story over and over again,” said Short. “If Title 1 is about students in need, we have that population. We just don’t fit the formula.”

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How the money was given out

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Here is what happened: a huge amount of COVID-19 stimulus relief, about $12 billion for New York schools, was distributed using Title 1, a federal formula. It’s meant to get more money to less wealthy school districts.

David Little is the director of the Rural Schools Association of NY State. He says, overall, Title 1 worked well. “That’s a quick and easy way to distribute that money, and an equitable way, because it’s based on the number of poor kids you’ve got.”

And Long Lake and Indian Lake definitely fit the spirit of Title 1, says Little. Over a third of their students qualify for free or reduced lunch, which is based on a low family income.

But the formula has this stipulation, which says that a district is out if they have less than 10 students living within poverty. It unintentionally penalizes Long Lake and Indian Lake, with their tiny populations. He explained, “…they don’t meet, what is in essence, an arbitrary cut-off number of 10 kids in poverty.”

Noelle Short said many times she knows they weren’t excluded deliberately; the rule isn’t intended to keep them out. But it does.

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A glitch in the system

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David Little says, alongside BOCES superintendents, the NYS School Boards Association, and New York elected officials, all agree: that this was, essentially, a mistake.

“In something very good that happened in the federal government giving out this enormous amount of money to schools, this was a glitch,” said Little.

For example, nearby districts with very similar populations (socioeconomically and in size) are receiving money, between 160 to 250,000 dollars. Lake Pleasant is getting $308,601. Newcomb: $237,127.

Long Lake and Indian Lake figured out early on they would be locked out of funding. But they, and advocates like Little, assumed they just needed to alert the state to an oversight. Little said in the beginning, “I thought they were just ignorant, in the literal sense of the word, that they didn’t know.”

So they told them, in emails, letters from representatives, over the phone, on zoom meetings. Getting money by changing Title 1 was quickly ruled out, as it would require an act of congress. That was disappointing, but they found another avenue: $224 million of discretionary education stimulus funding that was given to New York.

But they didn’t get anything. And that stung, because other states that had similar, locked out districts, like Montana, did find money to give to theirs. “This is the part that infuriates me” said David Little. “I don’t fault the government for using that system [Title 1], I do fault the state of New York not setting aside some of its discretionary money to use to make those districts whole.”

The New York State Division of Budget gave a written response, saying that Long Lake and Indian Lake are property rich districts, that the area’s income and property wealth is, essentially, too high.

Little says this ignores the reality of the student population. “Sure, it’s probably true that Indian Lake and Long Lake have a bunch of non-resident property owners that own property around the lake. But the fact of the matter is that 35% of their students qualify for free or reduced lunch. The students that live there are poor.”

Dale Breault, the BOCES District Superintendent for Long Lake and Indian Lake, put it this way, “…they don’t have gold plated drinking fountains in the building. These kids aren’t wealthy, for the most part.”

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Same challenges, no assistance

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More importantly, Breault says, is that they had to weather COVID-19, too, just like every other school.

“They’re not getting an additional assistance for that, and that’s frustrating. You know, they had learning loss, just like everyone else. They had tremendous expenses, with PPE and testing and hand sanitizer and additional transportation.”

At Long Lake, Noelle Short says they spent $26,000 on just materials and supplies. They had custodians and other staff working extra hours to keep the building open this last year. The stimulus money would have helped cover that.

But she’s more disappointed about lost future opportunities. She’s hearing her peers and colleagues discussing what they’ll do with the funds, “…they’re talking about programming. They’re talking about academic intervention services, buying new technology.”

All around are districts that have received hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, that they’ll spend on new staff, new programs, and adding summer school. It’s a chance to address the trauma of a pandemic, and make future investments.

Short says she’s thrilled districts are getting that money. She just wishes they were as well. “I feel that the students of Long Lake should not be left behind. We’re going to be fine, we’re going to continue to do a great job, but I have to advocate for the opportunity for [the students] to have more, just like everybody else.”

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What’s next? Where do they go from here?

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Long Lake and Indian Lake are waiting on another option now; they asked to be considered for bullet aid funding, from a small Division of Budget discretionary fund. But Short says she’s stopped hoping, and is trying to look forward now. There isn’t really any other choice.

She does hope that what happened here will influence how disaster relief money is distributed in the future, and perhaps even get that 10 student rule changed in Title 1. David Little, from the Rural Schools Association, wants that too. He sits on the steering committee of the National Rural Advocacy Coalition, and says that “we’ve made that as a national association, as a national group, to try and get this changed in the future.”

So far, he says, the Biden Administration seems open to the change.Meanwhile, Long Lake and Indian Lake are looking forward, not back, at trying to do the best for their students they can. Without the money.