Weathering the storm: School funding in the COVID-19 era

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, public schools will likely experience even greater revenue losses in the coming years than they did during the Great Recession. Further, it appears that safely reopening schools in the fall of 2020 will itself be costly. In districts where school buildings are open, much smaller class sizes will be required to meet social distancing guidelines and contain the spread of the coronavirus; this, in turn, will require hiring additional personnel, finding new classroom space, and perhaps creating staggered schedules. It will mean more instructional hours for teachers, more staff hours spent cleaning and sanitizing facilities, and more complicated bus routes. Schools will have to budget for additional time and effort from maintenance and operations staff, food service workers, and other support positions. Here, Baker et al offer recommendations for mitigating the effects of this looming fiscal crisis, with an emphasis on protecting the most vulnerable children, whose schools suffered the greatest harm during the Great Recession and have never fully recovered from large cuts to their budgets.