Kentucky school districts impacted by the death and devastation of December’s tornadoes can now apply for aid through an application that went live on the Kentucky Department of Education’s website Tuesday.

Through House Bill 5, $30 million has been set aside for impacted school districts, and on Tuesday, state education officials met virtually with school district superintendents to go over the process for requesting and receiving the money.

“From our perspective, things are going really well,” Bowling Green Independent School District Superintendent Gary Fields said during the meeting. “We feel like we’re meeting the needs of families as best as we can.”

As his school district works to return to a new normal, staff are also juggling other efforts, including distributing toys collected through a campaign headed by Kentucky first lady Britainy Beshear.

The Green River Regional Educational Cooperative agreed to distribute the donations for the state, and Fields said there are about 15 pallets worth going to his school district.

BGISD is also working to resettle many Afghan refugees that recently arrived.

“We’ve enrolled about 30 Afghan students in the last week. So that influx is now coming in,” Fields told Education Commissioner Jason Glass.

Warren County Public Schools spokeswoman Lauren Thurmond issued the following statement in response to questions about how H.B. 5 might affect the school district: “House Bill (HB) 5 appropriates $30 million for school districts affected by December’s tornado outbreak. We are currently working with FEMA to ascertain the documentation we will need to submit to them for reimbursement. In the next two weeks, we will be pulling in Transportation, Food Service and Maintenance to compile all of the volunteer logs, time logs and mileage logs in conjunction with what we have spent on items to get a dollar amount. Based on what is allowable via FEMA for reimbursement, we will then file an application for state grant funds.”

Dawson Springs Independent Schools Superintendent Leonard Whalen also shared an update from his western Kentucky community, where a massive tornado leveled a large swath of town.

“Things are looking up here. We’ve got a lot of debris that’s been removed, a lot of large debris. It’s really amazing the amount of work that’s happened over the last few weeks,” Whalen said Tuesday during the call.

Whalen was also among a group of superintendents of school districts hard hit by December’s tornadoes that recently told lawmakers their districts would need at least five years of extra financial help to stay viable, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

During Tuesday’s call, Whalen said his district was trying to return to a regular school schedule but was out for several days the previous week due to COVID-19 and staff shortages.

“It’s just going to take time to really get back into a routine and just some, you know, regular interaction with kids,” Whalen said.

Through House Bill 5, the Kentucky General Assembly provided $200 million to support school districts, local governments and other agencies responding to the disaster.

The Kentucky Department of Education has been developing a simple application for school districts to identify their funding needs.

Schools can use the state dollars to provide wraparound services, such as tutoring and mental health supports for students and families and assistance with additional transportation costs.

The state education department can also transfer a portion of the $30 million from the legislature to help repair damaged school buildings.

Districts are asked to provide information in the application for anticipated costs through June 30, the department said in a news release on its blog.