What Could Your PE Program Do With $150,000 in COVID Funds?

For lots of college districts today, obtaining $150,000 for e-Physical Education (e-PE) wearable technologies options and iPads is the stuff of dreams. For Adam Otstot of Virginia’s Hanover County Public Schools, the CARES Act produced that dream came correct.

The 2020 legislation allocates $13.2 billion in emergency COVID relief that can be used to purchase technologies products for K–12 public schools. And in contrast to grant requests, there was hardly any paperwork—just 3 very simple actions.

Step 1: Confirm your district has CARES Act funds out there. Adam decided to discover how the funds could be used to strengthen overall health and PE instruction in Hanover County. He recalls, “I have an incredibly supportive administrative staff. They saw my vision, and they were happy to allocate some of the CARES Act funds” to supply an equitable PE encounter to all Hanover County students. To confirm that funding is nonetheless out there for your district, be certain to verify with your administrators, teachers, and procurement officials.

Step 2: Make a requires list. The CARES Act provides preference to technologies, application, hardware, and device purchases—not other PE gear like racquets, nets, or balls. When Adam asked his fellow HPE teachers what they wanted, they requested sensible wearable technologies like heart price monitors and activity trackers, application, and miscellaneous products. They knew they not only could use the products now for on the net instruction, but later when in-individual mastering resumed.

Hanover County Public Schools’ Health and Physical Education (HPE) applications had restricted technologies at their disposal, Adam mentioned. So he collaborated with district HPE teachers to recognize the tools that would let them provide the most helpful instruction and assessment in the COVID era. He produced a one particular-web page want list and took it to upper-level administrators, who confirmed that emergency funding was out there.

The Hanover County teachers asked that the tracking devices be in a position to connect to the online, with a remedy that let students upload the information remotely into one particular central cloud place. This would let the teachers to see all their students’ benefits in one particular place at one particular time, and confirm the students had been performing the advisable quantity of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA).

Adam’s School Specialty representative advisable a excellent remedy: a technologies item that could aggregate the students’ activity information, saving teachers’ time and producing it quick to assess student efficiency and participation.

Step 3: Just ask. “I didn’t have to apply or fill out grant requirements” to get CARES Act dollars, Adam mentioned. “All I had to do was ask. That makes it a lot easier for me and every PE teacher or district coordinator.”

Of course, every single district is exceptional. The availability of funds, and the method for obtaining them, varies. Find out more about CARES funding allocations by going to https://covid-relief-data.ed.gov/. To obtain item options that align to your district’s requires, get in touch with your School Specialty representative.