Board approves carryover and new contracts for math instruction; officials say funds are last of COVID relief liquidation

The Ohio Controlling Board on Aug. 18 approved two items related to math instruction in K‑12 schools: the carryforward of unspent funds for a competitively procured contract with Zearn and the FY‑26 portion of a contract with the Central Ohio Educational Service Center (ESC) focused on alternatives to Algebra II.
Erin Rausch, who introduced the items, said the Zearn contract (competitively bid in FY 2024) originally totaled roughly $7.5 million when approved in July 2023 and the board was being asked to approve roughly $3.35 million in unspent funds from that original contract. "The first contract is with Zearn ... the $3,500,000 that we are requesting approval for today is the unspent funds from the contract from the last biennium," Rausch said.
Rausch said the Central Ohio ESC item — about $450,000 for FY 2026 — focuses on alternatives to Algebra II, including data science, discrete mathematics, statistics and quantitative reasoning. She told members these requests leverage late liquidation of federal COVID relief funds and that the department expects this is the last significant amount of such resources for math instruction unless the General Assembly provides new appropriations.
Senator Ingram asked why the department would extend or finish existing contracts rather than contract with local ESCs without competitive procurement; Rausch said both items were competitively procured and the department prefers to finish contracts that were competitively bid. With no objections, the board approved both items.