Millions of stimulus dollars have begun flowing into Illinois schools as district leaders are busy making plans for how to use the additional funds.

In the Rock Island-Milan School District, students struggling with reading will get more instruction from better-trained teachers on phonics and phonemic awareness, which is where most fall short.

Special education students in the Moline-Coal Valley School District will have access to a computer program called Compass that gives them instruction based on their ability and increases in difficulty as students master the material. Their teachers will have improved ways to assess students’ strengths and weaknesses.

And that’s just to name a few.

United Township High School and East Moline School districts haven’t made final decisions on where to spend the increased funds for special education and low-income students. But leaders said their plans will most likely involve improving classroom technology and increasing teacher training.    

“We are thankful that the federal government has come through with the stimulus money to help us keep the status quo,” said Rick Loy, Rock Island-Milan superintendent. “Honestly, we are not sure what we would have done without those funds, because it was apparent to us that the state would have had troubles living up to their obligations (for funding education).”

Districts will receive the stimulus dollars from three different streams.

The first two are aimed at putting more money in districts’ hands for special education and Title I, which is a program for low-income students. The four Illinois Quad-City districts are set to receive $4.6 million and $2.6 million in special education and Title I money, respectively. Most won’t start collecting the money until July.

The last pot of money is known as state fiscal stabilization funds. Illinois is using those dollars to maintain state funding levels for districts this school year and next, said Mary Fergus, a spokeswoman with the Illinois State Board of Education. The money has already started going out to schools, although the state didn’t have numbers for how much each district will receive.

The intent of the stimulus package is to pump money into the sluggish economy over the next two years as quickly as possible to prevent layoffs and create new jobs. Some local Illinois education leaders say it is doing just that.

Districts say the stabilization funds have saved them from making staff and program cuts this year. At the same time, Illinois State Board of Education officials say the stabilization funds free up money, so the state can catch up on its other payments to districts for services such as special education, free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch programs, and transportation.

“We rely on our general state aid payments,” said Cal Lee, Moline-Coal Valley superintendent. “Even with (the stimulus money), we are going to be a million short. But that’s still better than being three million dollars short.”

District officials in Rock Island, Moline, East Moline and United Township still are waiting to hear from the state on whether they will be allowed to use as much as 50 percent of the special education stimulus money they receive for existing costs, such as salaries. Doing so would free up hundreds of thousands of dollars in their general funds, which could be used to cover existing shortfalls.

“Money is tight enough in every district,” said Paul Seymour, East Moline chief financial officer. “We are not going to go out and do anything special with that money. You have to look down the road. It helps our fund balance and keeps us from having to make cuts.”