Want to see how your local school has been spending its federal money for disadvantaged students?
You can look it up the same way I did for my article about schools spending the money against San Diego Unified guidelines. A school district committee that is examining how well the money has been spent has posted the expenditures for all schools online. They're broken up into elementary schools, middle schools and high schools.
The reports can be a little confusing to read: Each purchase can be listed multiple times as it goes through the purchasing process. It's easiest to just look at the last column, which shows how much has actually been spent on a specific item at each school. The report was run about two weeks ago, so keep in mind that some schools may have already shifted some of these purchases to other funds.
Tongue depressors: $6.20. Tubes of petroleum jelly: $36.98. A mask to revive someone who isn't breathing: $57.75. Wangenheim Middle in Mira Mesa spent more than $1,000 on medical supplies for all its students this year, using federal money meant to only help disadvantaged children.
The school district had told Wangenheim it wasn't supposed to do that. San Diego Unified has long warned its school principals that they shouldn't spend any federal money for disadvantaged kids on things like medical supplies, athletic equipment and custodial supplies.
"It's probably a mistake on my part," former principal Lamont Jackson said, adding that the school district would be able to catch mistakes like that.