MACON, Ga. — A Central Georgia superintendent has been selected to be part of a committee aimed at getting the nation's students back on track.
Bibb County Superintendent Curtis Jones was picked by the School Superintendents Association to serve on the National American Rescue Plan Committee. He's one of 33 superintendents selected nationwide.
The committee will make recommendations on how school districts should use their American Rescue Funds. Their goal is to get schools re-opened safely and operating back to normal.
Monica Garcia-Jones says the funds will help her child get settled back at school.
Garcia-Jones and her 11-year-old, Emir, moved to Macon all the way from New York at the beginning of the year.
"My son been homeschooled since he was in first grade," she said.
That changed when they moved here. Emir just finished fifth grade at Rosa Taylor Elementary School.
"Over the summer, we thought it would be really great for him, for the first time, to be able to be doing a summer camp in Georgia and really just having that social experience," Garcia-Jones said.
Emir participated in The Digital Canvas, Be A Boss!, and Ready, Set, Action! -- those are all summer camps hosted by the district and funded by the CARES Act.
"He had a great time. He had a wonderful, wonderful time," she said.
Monica thinks Emir will have an easier time transitioning into middle school because of the bonds he's built and new skills he's learned.
"Summer camp has always been a necessary expense, but we've spent thousands of dollars over the period of summer," Garcia-Jones said.
Thanks to federal funding, they didn't have to pay a dime.
"To have a camp of this caliber where you have experts in your field that are your teachers, you have technology that's accessible to them, and to have that be free," said Garcia-Jones.
You can't beat that. Superintendent Curtis Jones wants to make sure kids like Emir have access to camps.
"We'll help find barriers and ways to improve the implementation of the American Rescue Plan," said superintendent Jones.
He says their mission is to identify those barriers through research and experience, and pass along that information to the Secretary of Education.
"There's a lot of money being put into the American Rescue Plan, trying to accelerate learning, trying to address learning loss we think students have experienced. How do you know if it's working? How do you know what the problems are? How do you work through those? It's important because unless you know what's happening on the ground, you don't really know what effect you're getting," he said.
Jones says being on this committee also benefits Bibb County Schools because it gives them a voice at the table.
"Sometimes we think that people don't hear us, and so we now have an ear willing to listen to the issues that we have," Jones said.
He says a few of the district's goals were to increase staffing and hold summer schools and camps like the ones Emir participated in to help address the learning loss.
They've achieved that, and are now working on plans to accelerate students with this funding.
Bibb County Schools will receive $100M in American Rescue Plan Funds, and they have three years to use it.
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