The Greene County School District staff will receive an additional payment for working during the pandemic.

Earlier this year, Governor Kim Reynolds authorized using federal covid relief funds and is paying $1,000 to each classroom teacher as a retention bonus. However, other positions with a school district did not qualify for these payments. The Greene County School Board chose to expand this to include all full time and part time staff within the district, using its allocated federal covid funds through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds.

The Board approved to give $1,000 to full time staff and $500 to part time staff that didn’t qualify under the governor’s retention program. Superintendent Tim Christensen comments on the Board’s decision.

“I think it’s important that we do the best we can to treat everybody equally. The governor’s plan, we had no say in it, we’re the middle people communicating that. I can’t say that it went over that well with people who felt that they were deserving of it, which to me everybody is deserving of it. So I think it’s the right thing to do in order to give that to everybody.”   

Some of the stipulations included employees who agreed to work in the district until the end of the current school year and that payments would be made on April 20th if the employee gives assurance by April 1st that they will remain on staff.