ENFIELD — The Mascoma Valley Regional School District is fighting for reimbursement of half-a-million dollars it has already spent on ventilation improvements and professional development programs after the U.S. Department of Education declined to provide the district with the previously approved funds.
“It’s pretty disheartening that we had been promised this money and suddenly it’s been taken away from us,” Amanda Isabelle, the superintendent of the Mascoma Valley Regional School District, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “We’re talking about kids and providing for the needs of our future. We need to be assured that that money is available.”
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, district leaders decided to examine the heating, cooling and ventilation systems (HVAC) at the four schools in the district and found the systems at Canaan Elementary School and Enfield Village School needed updating.
The U.S. Department of Education approved funding through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund, or ESSER — which was created in response to the pandemic — for the district to do the work at the two schools.
The construction at Canaan Elementary — “a like-for-like replacement of existing failed and obsolete equipment,” according to a report from contractor Johnson Controls — wrapped up last summer and the district received the federal funds it was guaranteed.
But it took longer to do the work at Enfield Village School because Johnson Controls needed the help of plumbing and ductwork companies.
At the suggestion of the New Hampshire Department of Education, the district applied, and was approved for an extension to spend the money. This March, crews completed the work in Enfield.
On March 28, the U.S. Department of Education notified state-level education officials that the liquidation period would now end that day.
“Extending deadlines for COVID related grants, which are in fact taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the Department’s priorities and thus not a worthwhile exercise of its discretion,” the letter from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.
Mascoma is the only school district in New Hampshire that had an extension from the U.S. Department of Education to spend the pandemic-era funds, Kimberly Houghton, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Education Department, said.
As of Friday morning, the Vermont Agency of Education had submitted 80 waivers requesting the ability for the state and 17 school districts to continue spending down a total of $11.6 million since the new March 28 liquidation end period, Lindsey Hedges, a spokesperson for the Vermont agency, said.
The list of 17 districts includes three in the Upper Valley: Hartford; Orange Southwest Supervisory Union, which includes Randolph-area schools; and Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union, which includes Windsor-area schools.
Of the 80 Vermont requests, the U.S. Education Department has only responded to two thus far. It declined to reimburse the state for literacy initiatives, and approved dollars for an after school program in the Kingdom East district, Hedges said.
Since the March denial, Mascoma has reapplied for an extension, but on May 16, the U.S. Department of Education said it would no longer be reimbursing the district for the nearly $400,000 HVAC project or a $126,000 professional development program for teachers intended to help them understand the science behind learning to read.
“I have determined the New Hampshire Department of Education was unable to sufficiently explain how each project directly mitigates the effects of COVID on American students’ education,” the department’s letter declining the district’s reimbursements said.
The school district has gotten support from the state’s congressional delegation.
During a U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., asked McMahon: “will you work with me to ensure that rural schools, including the Mascoma Valley school district which undertook these projects to protect their students, will receive the funding that they were promised by the department?”
McMahon, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, seemed receptive. “Yes, I look forward to getting back to you on this particular issue as well, Senator,” she said.
The other members of the state’s congressional delegation have also voiced support for Mascoma, but Frank Edelblut, the outgoing commissioner of the state’s education department, has not been as sympathetic.
On Wednesday, Isabelle sent a letter appealing the decision to withhold funds to the New Hampshire Department of Education for it to be passed along to McMahon.
“These upgrades are not simply infrastructure improvements,” Isabelle wrote in the letter. “They are critical interventions designed to ensure that students can learn in environments that are healthy, safe, and conducive to academic success.”
Before the updates to its HVAC system, Enfield Village School had “inconsistent classroom temperatures and inadequate air circulation,” the letter said. Since the construction, which included replacing radiators with unit ventilators — devices that provide heating, cooling and ventilation by admitting outside air — attendance rates have improved, Isabelle wrote.
But on Thursday morning, Lisa Mercier, the department’s administrator of policy and operations, called the district’s business administrator, Michelle Lockwood, to say Edelblut, who is set to depart at the end of the school year, is refusing to support the district’s letter of appeal and send it to McMahon, Lockwood said.
“We have had nothing but full support from the (New Hampshire) Department of Education through this whole process so we were shocked to receive this news this morning,” Isabelle said in a Thursday phone interview.
The U.S. Department of Education gave the district until June 15 to submit an appeal.
But the New Hampshire Department of Education says the district missed a June 2 deadline to notify the state level department on whether it would be appealing the decision, Houghton, said in an email to the Valley News Thursday.
Lockwood acknowledged that the district did miss the June 2 deadline.
As of Friday morning, Isabelle was seeking advice from Shaheen’s office on how to move forward with the appeal process without support from Edelblut.
Although School Board Chairman Tim Josephson is “still hopeful that the federal government will honor their word and pay this out,” if the appeal process does not prove successful for the district, pursuing legal action is not off the table, he said.
“This board will fight for every Mascoma taxpayer and student,” Josephson said in a phone interview Thursday.
If the district does not get reimbursed, there are about $650,000 of undesignated funds available to pay the bills, Isabelle said, but it’s money that could otherwise be returned to taxpayers.
“The taxpayers of Mascoma are getting screwed over by the Trump Administration,” Josephson said. “It doesn’t matter who you voted for, we’re all stuck with the bill.”
Emma Roth-Wells can be reached at erothwells@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.
