The Education Department has released updated guidance on the spending of $13.2 billion in K-12 relief funding included as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed in early 2020. As K-12 Dive reports, the department granted districts and states 120 additional days to spend funds past the Sept. 30 deadline.

The department also said districts could apply for as much as 14 months of extra time to allocate the resources.

The guidance comes as large groups of state and district superintendents and other education officials are publicly pushing federal officials for clarification on spending deadlines for the nearly $190 billion in total relief aid distributed to schools during the pandemic.

As for where funds have already been allocated, K-12 Dive reports on a new analysis of state and district K-12 recovery spending by the team at the Georgetown University think tank FutureEd which captures a trend of robust investment in literacy training and development for educators amid widening achievement gaps and flagging reading abilities for students just learning to read.

Phyllis Jordan, associate director at FutureEd, says that the federal infusion of unprecedented amounts of resources into America’s schools during the pandemic has led to an increase in phonics-based instruction that is evidence-based and aligned to the “Science of Reading.” Jordan points to states like North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah as examples of statewide investments and programming driving improvements in literacy instruction.

Looking beyond relief funds, here are eight other updates from across the country about how states and school systems are confronting the challenges posed by COVID-19 and its variants — and working to preserve student progress amid the pandemic,

Read the full article about school challenges due to COVID-19 by Joshua Parrish at The 74.