Decision made to help families during COVID-19
Pandemic June 10, 2020–Channelview ISD will not be asking its parents to purchase school supplies for the upcoming 2020-2021 school year. The decision to not provide a school supply list for the upcoming year was made by district leaders in an effort to help the Channelview ISD community during these difficult economic times.
“COVID-19 has had a heartbreaking impact on our nation and local community,” said Channelview ISD Superintendent Greg Ollis. “We will do everything necessary to lift the financial burden off of parents during these tough times, and reassure our students that they will receive the necessary supplies to help them learn.”
Channelview ISD also participates in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) which allows the district to provide free school meals to all its students. CEP is offered to schools in low-income neighborhoods and enables the district to use information from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help better serve the district’s families, and prevent families from completing several applications for free or reduced meals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will also provide more than 1 billion dollars in food benefits to low-income families due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) will give all Channelview ISD families a one-time payment of 285 dollars to be used for food. Families have until June 30 to sign up for those benefits; https://yourtexasbenefits.com/Learn/PEBT.
District administrators continue to inform the community of local resources parents can take advantage of during this time, but are well aware that families still need additional help.
“Our executive leadership team brainstormed different ways to help our families for the upcoming school year and decided to take a close look at the budget,” said Assistant Superintendent of Finance Jennifer Carnathan. “We were able to crunch some numbers and determined this would be a great way the district could help.”
School supplies will be delivered to each campus before classes begin. Decisions regarding the upcoming school year are still being discussed among district leaders and will be shared with students, parents, community and stakeholders at a later time.