Last February, I had the honor to be among several trainers teaching computer-assisted reporting and data analysis to 20 education reporters during the Education Writers Association statistics boot camp held at Arizona State University in Phoenix.

Besides teaching some basic sessions on database managers, such as Excel and Access, and how to use these tools for everyday reporting  and complex stories, I had five reporters, which I’m currently coaching as they work on their proposed projects. They all came armed with data, mostly related to stimulus funding, to work with during the bootcamp.

Lisa Schencker, an education reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, was among these reporters.

A story began to emerge as we discussed the data she brought to the bootcamp after she realized that some of her largest school districts in Utah had not spent any Title I or IDEA funds, a year after the American Reconstruction and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was approved.

One of ARRA rules is that funds must be spent quickly to jumpstart the economy. I’ve wondered at the time, if school districts across the country, including Utah, were hurting financially why were these school districts keeping stimulus dollars on their banks accounts? There had to be some explanation or so I thought.

Lisa knew she had a story and like any good reporter, she persevered at following the money after she returned to her newsroom. She expanded her initial open records request and asked school districts to provide updated data showing how much money was spent for Title I and IDEA grants and how much had gone to each school.

She didn’t give up when some school officials didn’t provide exactly what she requested. Meanwhile, she continued to cover her daily duties as she worked on and off on this story for about two months.

On April 26, her story, “Some school districts retain pile of stimulus cash,” was published.  District officials gave her different responses but mostly that “they are trying to find a balance between spending the money quickly to help revive the economy and spending it wisely to best help students."

And readers responded: some called and expressing concerns that some special education programs had suffered cuts while school districts sat on stimulus funds. Many posted comments online.

I've asked Lisa to share what she learned during the course of this story. She said that reporters should keep an eye on this issue especially by the end of September when school districts have one year left to use ARRA funds or lose the cash.

And she provided some advice for reporters including:

Talk to people over Title I and IDEA stimulus money at your districts first. See if they’ll tell you how much has been spent without an open records request and Use an open records request if they won’t look it up for you.

Also when you ask for the total amount of Title I stimulus money spent, make sure they’re giving you actual money spent at both the school and district levels (some districts initially gave me numbers that included Title I stimulus money allocated to schools that the schools hadn’t actually spent yet.)

I would like to thank Lisa for taking the time to share this information with us.

That said, I would like to encourage education writers and the public to ask their school districts how are they spending their stimulus funds. After all the public has a right to know how their tax dollars are affecting public education.

Let us know if you have a story to share with EdMoney.org.