FAYETTEVILLE -- The Fayetteville Board of Education approved $2,200 in bonuses to its employees, to be paid in $1,100 halves in November and May.
The payments to 1,425 employees will cost $3.9 million including taxes and other expenses, according to district figures. The board approved the bonuses in a 6-0 vote.
Thursday's decision comes after the Arkansas Legislative Council signed off last month on granting $77.2 million in federal American Rescue Plan money to schools. The council is a group of lawmakers who oversee government operations when the Legislature is not in session.
The $77.2 million comes from the more than $1 billion in federal funding the state received from the Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund to support schools during the covid-19 pandemic. The ESSER funds are a part of the American Rescue Plan Act approved by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in March 2021. The state Department of Education required legislative council approval to distribute the money.
In a related issue, the district's substitute teacher pay of $90 a day is below that of other districts and will not be adequate to fill the gaps once flu season takes hold, Pastor Clint Schnekloth of the Good Shepard Lutheran Church warned the board. Schnekloth has served as a substitute teacher in the district, he said.
In other business, construction of John L Colbert Middle School is on time and on budget, the board was told. The school on Rupple Road is scheduled to open in the fall of next year. Warren Collier, slated to be the school's first principal and an associate principal at Fayetteville High School, also told the board the mascot for the new school will be the "Colbert Cobras."
The board also heard from GR Recruiting, the consulting firm hired by the board to help find a replacement for retiring Superintendent John L Colbert. Online surveys, meetings with staff and parent stakeholder groups and other public comment identified demonstrated leadership ability in previous positions as the most desired trait among those groups.
An ability to take and hold a "big picture" outlook also ranked high on the list of priorities, said GR representative Brenda Dietrich. The firm also looked into the district's strengths in trying to attract a superintendent, Dietrich said. District patrons praised the district for its strong support of diversity, the quality of its staff and the attractiveness of the community overall, she said.
The district has exceptionally high approval from patrons for staff interaction with district patrons, Dietrich said. The percentage of patrons surveyed who said they were able to get to the right person to address whatever issue they wanted to raise, for timely response, giving the information needed and staff courteousness were all higher than normal than other districts surveyed, Dietrich said, even reaching 90% in the courteous category. Scores in the 50s are normal in these categories, she said.