Haleyville City Schools
Financial Accountability Summary
July 2021

In Haleyville City Schools, we believe in being transparent and financially responsible to our community which goes above and beyond to support our school district. Over the past 2 years, we have been blessed to be able to refinance some bonds, we have received a Bond from the State of Alabama for capital improvements, have received Educational Advancement and Technology money from the state and have recently received money from the state and federal government related to the COVID-19 pandemic. All of these funds are allowing us to not only make some much needed capital improvements, they also are allowing us to strengthen our academic programs, technology and student resources that will have positive and lasting impacts on student achievement.

Often times capital improvement, or things that are visible around our campuses get more attention than the important improvements we are making that impact student achievement and success. When we see capital projects going on, it is easy to assume that the focus of the district is buildings, athletic facilities, fine arts facilities, etc. and not student achievement. While these improvements are helping us to strengthen the safety and the creating an inviting climate in our schools and facilities, you will see that the majority of the money being spent in Haleyville City Schools is being spent on students and increasing achievement across the board. We do pride ourselves in having nice facilities, but our vision for Haleyville City Schools is to motivate, educate and inspire all students to achieve academic excellence. We put students first and our focus is on academics, while we work to maintain healthy and safe environments for our students, faculty and staff.

To ensure financial transparency to our stakeholders and our community, we felt it necessary to share details of our current financial plans and our future plans for the bond, grant and state/federal dollars Haleyville City Schools has received. We will begin with the new CARES and ESSER money that primarily focus on student safety (COVID) and academics. We will end with fund sources that help us with facilities and capital improvements.

Early in the pandemic, there were emerging discussions on how to assist schools during this trying time and funding became available from the state and federal government that greatly helped us stay afloat in what proved to be a very difficult time in public education. The first funding we received was the ESSERF Cares Act money.

HCS portion of the CARES Act money (also known as ESSER I) was $348,953. With this money HCS was able to provide teachers with classroom supplies to reduce sharing of materials, improve our technology and accessibility to Schoology by purchasing additional add-on programs making it more user friendly and accessible, hire additional health paraprofessionals to increase social distancing and help our school nurses navigate COVID issues (1/2 of salary paid from this fund source), purchase PPE, masks, gloves, and other health related supplies, purchase janitorial cleaning supplies (foggers, wipes, sanitizing supplies), and assisted our Meals-to-Go as we launched a new way of feeding when students were not in school.

Once we had a grasp on some of the new norms, the Governor’s focus shifted to ensuring we were addressing learning and achievement gaps created by schools being shut down in the spring. The Governor designated some of her federal money to this effort and granted schools money from the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund. HCS received $107,709 in this fund. With these funds, Haleyville City Schools put WiFi on buses and parked them in the community for student use, addressed Learning and Achievement Gaps by increasing our instructional paraprofessionals to work 1:1 or in small groups with students experiencing gaps in learning, use the money for additional classroom resources and supplies, ensured students were receiving speech assistance through our speech pathology teacher, and added back our before and after school tutoring programs.

The third funding source that came in December of 2020 was the Coronavirus Relief Funds- CRF. This fund source was focused on Educational Health & Wellness as well as Educational Remote Learning Devices. HCS received $502,075 in these combined fund sources. Under the Health and Wellness Grant ($214,225), HCS paid the remaining ½ of our health paraprofessionals salary and benefits from this grant, were able to pay for a nurse that was needed in our special education department, and purchased all health supplies needed to ensure student safety. The Educational Remote Learning Devices portion of the CRF ($287,850) was used on instructional software to assist with the identification and planning of addressing the academic slide of our students, purchased iPads/Chromebooks to ensure HHS and HES were 1:1 with devices (HES working to be 1:1), and purchased interactive panels for classroom instruction and digital instruction for virtual students.

At 1.6 M, ESSSER II is the largest funding source we have received to date, but ESSER III (3.6M) is coming this fall. ESSER II has provided HCS with opportunities to educate students in ways that districts the size of Haleyville have simply not had the money to do so in the past. The focus of ESSER II is to provide schools with the money needed to address the achievement slide or gaps in achievement through high quality instructional materials, high quality professional development, providing unfinished learning supports, and a small percentage can be used for facilities.

NOTE: ESSER II money has to be spent or encumbered by 2023, so the numbers you will see in our budget description are the amounts over a 3-year period.

In the area of High-Quality Instructional Materials, HCS will continue to use Scott Foresman and Reading Horizons at the lower grades with A+ College Ready being our primary curriculum in 6-12. In reading, HCS will spend 67K for Reading Horizons books and material replacement and to expand the non-fiction text library at HMS. In the area of Math, HCS has adopted Envision by Savvas Learning. The math manipulatives for Envision, teacher professional development for K-12, and learning support/Success Maker Remediation programs will be total an 132k investment for HCS. For Math and Reading combined, HCS will spend $199,524 over the next 3 years in the area of High-Quality Instructional Materials.

In the area of High-Quality Professional Development for reading, HCS will work to retool all teachers K-5 in the ARI Modules, will implement the Reading Horizons Coaching Model and will ensure that teachers are LETRS Trained. At the upper levels, teachers will complete A+ E3 Training for ELA this summer. In the area of Math, HCS teachers will attend AMSTI Number Sense, AMSTI Fractions and Decimals, will attend year 2 of A+ Training, and will attend AMSTI Course of Study training. In total, HCS will invest $52,566 in the training, planning, vertical alignment and expenses for High-Quality Professional Development from ESSER II money.

In the area of Unfinished Learning Support, HCS has focused on ensuring that all students have the opportunities they need to be successful and increase their academic achievement. HCS will work with iReady to assess students reading levels and develop plans of action for either extending reading opportunities or remediating when necessary, We have created specialized classrooms focused in remediating skills lost or not mastered in the previous year in 2 grade levels at HES, we are adding a high needs transition classroom at HMS, we are increasing high-dosage tutoring, we have added summer programs at each school (with transportation and meals provided), we are increasing our student access to credit recovery, expanding opportunities for students identified with special learning needs, increasing ACT preparation and exposure as well as increasing our programs dealing with social, emotional and behavioral issues. In total, HCS will invest over 741K in these areas over the next 3 years. We are also adding a new app, giving parents access to more information from their phone or digital device (English and Spanish). HCS is also dedicated to individualizing and improving learning in areas that we have identified as weaknesses. We are adding a Math Coach at HES, adding a Math Interventionalists at HMS, increasing opportunities for small group reading intervention at HES, adding additional student support at HHS and HMS with academic support/remediation opportunities, adding an additional social worker to assist with social and emotional support and adding individualized programs to support students identified with gaps in learning. In the area of Unfinished Learning Support, HCS has dedicated 1.1M to supporting our students.

In the area of Facilities, which also includes the ability to fund some needed positions with help with student health and safety, HCS will use 50K to upgrade HVAC in poorly ventilated buildings, will increase our focus on making good choices with the addition of vape sensors in bathrooms, and will continue to fund the 3 health paraprofessionals (one at each school) for a total of 264K in the area of Facilities.

Part of the ESSER II funding also allows a separate budget for Course of Study professional development and assessment professional development. HCS was allotted 69K that we will use in these 3 areas.

We are currently developing our plan for ESSER III which will continue the plans for ESSER II in the areas of High-Quality Instructional Materials, High-Quality Professional Development, as well as Unfinished Learning Supports for additional years. HCS will be awarded 3.6M in ESSER III funds.

The ETF Advancement and Technology Fund ($442,192 in 2021) is a fund created when the state budget is healthy, creating a reserve that is then redistributed to local schools. We have received this money for the past few years. This money has to be spent in 5 categories: Repairs or Deferred Maintenance of Facilities, Classroom Instructional Support, Insuring Facilities, Purchase of Education Technology & Equipment or School Security Measures. This money has been used over the past few years to increase our technology and have 1:1 student devices at HMS and HHS as well as increase devices at HES. It has been used to buy interactive audio-visual equipment for classrooms, interactive white board tables at HES and HMS, build an outdoor bathroom for the physical education department at HES to increase safety, create more collaborative classrooms at HHS, remodel shops at HCT- making them more like a simulated work place, helped to remodel our HHS library, refloor our self-contained special education classroom, helped to restructure the entry at HES to increase safety, and paved several parking lots. Some of this money was also used to expand the outdoor space at the HHS Cafeteria, adding outdoor seating and a canopy for social distancing. 

We hope that our budgets and revenues continue to be strong at the state and we continue to receive the ETF Advancement and Technology money in the future. This money helps us to not only strengthen our ability to use technology for classroom/home instruction, it also allows us to make repairs to current facilities without dipping into local funding.

The next fund source that we received was from locally refinancing our HCS Bond for HMS, which was previously held by the City of Haleyville. This allowed them to get this debt off their books and allowed us to refinance at a great rate. From this refinance, we received $615,611 that we can use as a district for capital projects only. In FY20, we used 50k of this money to fix a drainage issue on the hill at HES and to complete 2 flooring projects- one at HES and one at HHS. In FY21, we made improvements to our HHS baseball, softball, football, library, and lunchroom: field work, paint, adding graphics, etc. (HMS & HHS Band Rooms complete Summer/Fall 2021 as well). We also purchased a new indoor sports training facility and are working on a new annex at our Central Office. These projects totaled 244k. With the remaining 321K, our plan is to finish the Central Office annex; bring the indoor sports training facility into code with the addition of HVAC, fire systems and a bathroom; purchase weight equipment for HMS; purchase concession equipment for the visitor concession; and use some of the money for some improvements in the HHS gymnasium. The indoor training facility will be used by multiple sports and fine arts programs. Our goal will be to have some indoor training areas for cheer and golf to provide them additional space on campus.

The State of Alabama in collaboration with the State Department of Education issued a State Bond in 2021 that gave funds to all school districts across the state for capital improvements. The HCS portion of this money was 2.3M. It was the goal of Haleyville City Schools to use this money to spread this money between all schools as best we could so all schools could benefit. For HHS, we are bidding and working to get everything in place to renovate the HHS Gym Lobby, restrooms and concession area. This will include new doors and windows- what is called a store front- that will be similar to the lunchroom and front of the main building. This the is the only area not renovated in the past few major renovations at HHS. This project is estimated at 630K and we hope to begin this project following the 2021-2021 indoor seasons. We also are bidding a project to add a new visitor concession stand and bathrooms where the existing concession stand is now at the HHS Track. Part of this project will include a cross country/track/soccer girls dressing room, a visitor dressing for football which will double as a cross country/track/boys soccer dressing area for our HHS Spring Sport athletes. This will also include a new HMS weight room. Between HHS and HMS, we currently have 351 athletes with 111 of those athletes playing multiple sports. The total estimated for this project is 1.25M. the remaining 500k will be used to make improvements to the “hill” in front of HES by adding a retaining wall, paving HES parking lots and replacing exterior doors to increase HVAC efficiency as well as safety.

In addition to State and Federal funding, Haleyville City Schools actively seek competitive grants that strengthen our academic programs and allow us to individualize instruction for all students. In Fiscal Years 20 and 21 combined, HCS was awarded over 1.2M in competitive grants. These grants include grants for HMS Robotics; Gifted and Talented Programs Grant; First Class Pre-K Grant; High Cost Grants for special populations; Social Worker Grant; Anti-Bullying and Safe Environment Grant; Social & Emotional Behavior Grant; Computer Program Initiative Grant; National School Lunch Program Equipment Assistance Grant; and RC&D STEAM Lab, iPad, Bringing World History to Life, Security Door with Intercom, and Senior Play Technology & Equipment Grants.

Haleyville City Schools are also blessed to receive 150K annually from the City of Haleyville to support local funding efforts. These funds have allowed us to upgrade our Haleyville Center of Technology buildings, purchasing new equipment and creating simulated work spaces for our students (87% of HHS students are enrolled in at least one HCT course). These funds have also helped us purchase new stage curtains at HES and renovate the stage area, provided additional canopy space and storage spaces at HHS and HMS, and much more. The City of Haleyville also grants us 15K yearly for the Roaring Lion Band. These funds have purchased new uniforms, instruments, supported competitions, and much more over the past few years (the band has   in its program). We are so appreciative of our community and the City of Haleyville for their dedication and continued support of Haleyville City Schools.

Haleyville City Schools were among the first city schools in the state to collaborate with their county commission to get a share of the Simplified Sellers Use Tax (internet sales tax) which YTD has added $27,140 to our local funding source. Haleyville City Schools are so appreciative to Roger Hayes and the Winston County Commission for supporting local schools and making a commitment to funding schools through this SSUT tax. This tax is used to support local funding efforts.

Haleyville City Schools are also heavily supported through donations and event attendance of our local legislative body. Senator Garlan Gudger has supported HCS financially over the past 2 years with gifts of 26K to support projects in our Haleyville Center of Technology, HES Outdoor Classroom, Math Collaborative Work Spaces, STEAM projects, collaborative special education projects, athletics, and our Traditions Wall at HHS. Representative Tracy Estes has been a tremendous support and has financially supported HCS by donating over 14K over the past 2 years. Representative Estes has supported Student Scholarships, the HES Outdoor Classroom, STEAM Labs, helped support the Roaring Lion Band dinners, athletics, and has made donations for classroom supplies. Representative Proncey Robertson is a wonderful supporter of HCS as well. Representative Robertson has financially supported HCS by donating over 11K over the past 2 years. Representative Robertson has supported our Back to School Bash, has greatly impacted teacher/staff attendance by supporting the Quarterly Perfect Attendance Lunches, and supported HCS’s efforts to remember Mark Forrester by dedicating the Mark Forrester Memorial Plaque at HMS. These gentlemen support HCS in so many ways and are true advocates for Haleyville City Schools in Montgomery. We are so appreciative for all they do and their dedication and service to our state.

In summary, we have used the additional funding sources outlined above to help Haleyville City Schools achieve high levels of academic professional development, curriculum materials/supplies, technology, STEAM focused advances, math and reading enrichment, summer programs, tutoring, remediation programs. We have also kept students safe, improved social and emotional learning and maintained safe and inviting facilities. In Haleyville City Schools, students are our focus. We strive to do all we can to carry out our mission, which is to provide students with the skills necessary to become well-rounded, productive citizens.

HCS Summer Programs 2021- ESSER II: Unfinished Learning Support

2021 HES Summer Road Trip

Haleyville Elementary School’s Summer Road Trip kicked off the summer with a daily attendance average of 110 students during the two weeks in June. The day began with a nutritional breakfast provided by our CNP staff and greetings from each of the students’ teachers. As a summer road trip team, teachers read the book FLAT STANLEY by Jeff Brown and sent their own Flat Stanley on his own road trip.

Teachers continued the instructional day engaging students in rich reading curriculum that centered around habitats that Flat Stanley might see as he travels various areas of our world. The first adventure was through a rain forest followed by deserts and upcoming will be Artic and ocean habitats. While visiting these terrains students were exposed to facts and were allowed to explore more in-depth information that sparked their personal interest. Exploring these habitats lead students to engage in STEAM activities.

Students explored the outside of the building collecting items that could be used to build a classroom rain forest habitat. Students were also provided specific supplies to create their own rain forest habitat and the following week students were given a different medium to create their own desert. Students built their own solar oven and cooked S’mores which revealed the power of the sun in our hometown as well as a desert. As the day progressed teachers offered specific curriculum from SBR resources. These included Reading Horizon where the focus is phonics, along with Hunks and Chunks strategy, Heggerty, where the focus is phonemic awareness, and the use of Snap Cards providing visual clues for sight words.

This road trip has offered fun and exciting ways for students to learn about new places and has offered skills that were not mastered in the previous year, reverse summer learning loss and achieve learning gains.

2021 HMS Scholar Zone

Haleyville Middle School hosted “The HMS Scholar Zone” this past June 14th – 25th. All students going in to grade 6-8 next year were invited to attend at no cost- transportation and meals were provided as well. The students were divided up by grade level and their math level from I-Ready or I-XL. Students ate lunch at 11:30 and began classes at 12:00. The camp ended at 3:00. Our daily attendance averaged was 46 with a high of 51 students and low of 42 students.

Math scores have to improve and we hope the scholar zone help us achieve our math goals for next year. All students took math, reading, STEAM, and pe. Each class took approximately 45 minutes with a 10-minute break scheduled in the day.

Our math classes began with a test to see what our student’s math needs were. From there Mrs. Townsend developed lessons that help support those needs. Lots of small group activities were used so our students could more individual attention. Some topics covered were adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions. Dividing decimal, and multiplication table.

Our STEAM classes started an ice cream truck business from scratch. They had to research the price of ice creams trucks, get a cost of ice cream, determine how many employees they can afford, the name of their business, and the location of their business. The students named their business “The HMS Scoop Shop.” They determined that they would park their truck close to Walmart from 11:00 – 3:00. This class showed the students how math can be used at work and why they need to learn the math we are teaching.

Our reading classes had various assignments over the 10 days. Using test scores to determine their reading levels, students were assigned fiction and non-fiction stories or short books. Students would have to determine cause and effect, main characters, and learn the meaning of new words by reading the word in a sentence.

Our PE classes gave students a break from the classroom and taught students new games with strategy involved. After exercises, students played Dominoes, Checkers, Jenga, and dodge ball.

We were pleased with our “HMS Scholar Zone” this summer. The teachers worked hard and did an outstanding job preparing lessons and teaching them.

2021 HHS Summer Learning Opportunities

HHS has had a busy summer with a hub of activity occurring each day. Traditional summer school this year provided students the opportunity to pursue both credit recovery and credit advancement. This summer we hosted 16 students in the credit recovery program where we used APEX Learning to enhance their learning opportunities and get them caught up in courses where they had struggled during the regular school year. These students meet in June and July, at the high school, from 8:00-12:00, Monday-Thursday. Credit recovery students are served a free meal/snack each day, which is provided by the Child Nutrition Program, and is delivered to the commons area of the high school. Additionally, HHS has 30 students working toward credit advancement this summer in different subject areas. Some of these students use ACCESS Virtual Learning for their learning opportunities, while others use Schoology to complete the Driver’s Education program. These students are considered virtual learners and complete their assignments remotely and most often submit written assignments online, minus the driver’s education students who make arrangements with driver’s education teachers to complete driving assignments with the school car.

To help students strengthen their math and science skills, math tutoring is available each Tuesday and Thursday, from 12-2, and science on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 12:30-3:30, providing instruction in these areas free of charge to any student willing to invest the extra time for the service. One of the tutors is former alumni, which we are happy to welcome back to campus. Additionally, students opting to reserve a spot, can attend the Henson Summer ACT Boot Camp which begins Monday, July 12th, from 3-6:00 p.m. Monday - Friday.

The English Learners Literacy Camp was also taking place on the campus of HHS this summer. This camp, provided by Haleyville City Schools, provided an eight day English Language Literacy Camp for grades 6-12. 0n average we had 8-10 campers. The campers developed in the area of vocabulary, becoming more sophisticated thinkers and problem solvers. They explored poetry, went on a nature walk at city lake and went on several virtual field trips. The WIDA language development standards were put into practice to help them develop their language and academic growth. Campers were exposed to enriched academic vocabulary through different modalities: modeling, immersion, interaction and direct instruction. Campers learned how to use resources (including multiple languages and cultures), make decisions, and take steps to address academic challenges. This EL literacy camp prepared campers with positive educational outcomes and will help them with future academic endeavors. The teachers proudly shared that 12 students qualified to exit the EL program this year. This is a wonderful accomplishment. HHS celebrated that two of the students exiting were from the high school.