The state has charged the Duval County School District with misappropriating $2.7 million in federal grant money.

The federal government gave the district the money to use for Title I schools, which have a large number of students from low-income families.

The state says last year the district used the federal money in lieu of state and local tax dollars in 17 schools where students are struggling, when the grant money should have been used in addition to local money.

District spokeswoman Jill Johnson tells our news partner, Channel Four, that the grant money was used to hire teachers.

"The money was used for instruction. So it was additional instruction for those students in the Title I schools, correct...So where we erred was utilizing that money for those instead of additional supplemental things for those students, whether it be coaches or additional guidance media," she says.

Superintendent Ed Pratt Dannals says the district didn't think it was using the funds improperly until the state came forward and told them they were.

"So the money was still spent in Title I schools, still spent for Title I purposes, but it was an issue of whether, for some of those costs, we should have used class-size money instead."

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference wants the district to take action and wants to be sure this doesn't happen again.

"Our concern is still the same as it relates to whether the funds were actually put in the schools properly, whether the funds were properly used in the schools, and also as it relates to that, how that has impacted the students in the Title I schools," says SCLC president R.L. Gundy.  "Whether you used misused, whether you use misappropriated, if you didn't spend it where you're supposed to spend it, that means it was misused."

The school district will have to restore that $2.7 million in this year's budget, since the violation took place last fiscal year.  Pratt Dannals says the district planned for that money in this year's budget because they knew about possibly having to restore the money before the official audit came out.

"So for next year, principals can't use their Title I funds to purchase teachers and then it won't be a question, it won't be a conflict, it won't be hard to figure out," says Pratt Dannals.