Pulaski County district OKs extra pay for school staffs' virus efforts

FILE — This 2015 file photo shows public school buses. (AP Photo/File)
FILE — This 2015 file photo shows public school buses. (AP Photo/File)

State-licensed educators and support staffers in the Pulaski County Special School District can expect to receive next month a round of covid-19 compensation payments for their on-site work during the 2020-21 school year.

The district's School Board voted 5-0 at a special meeting Tuesday in support of the additional compensation that will be paid at the rate of $12.53 a day.

Board members approved the payments at a meeting in which they chose not to submit a request to the state for a waiver to continue into next school year the practice of dismissing students from classes early on Wednesdays. The early dismissal of students from the campuses allowed time for faculty planning and teacher assistance to individual students.

The Pulaski County Special district is one of multiple districts in Arkansas providing one-time payments to employees for their work in the pandemic school year. That work has included providing both in-person and online lessons to students as well as sanitizing facilities and otherwise defending against the coronavirus.

The extra payment could amount to more than $2,000 for a teacher who has a standard 190-day contract and up to $2,800 for district employees who typically work year-round. The district employees, however, will not receive the extra compensation for any days they were not on-site for reasons such as illness, quarantine as a result of covid-19 exposure, or inclement weather days when the buildings were not open.

The payments are for the days worked during a period that began July 1 and ends next Tuesday, a month short of a full work year.

The compensation payments are generally coming from federal covid-19 relief money allocated to the state and school systems. The special federal money cannot be used for traditional bonuses and must be tied to pandemic-related work.

In response to questions from School Board member Stephen Delaney, Superintendent Charles McNulty confirmed that the payment for the Pulaski County Special district was calculated by averaging the daily rate of pay for all employees, dividing that average by eight hours to get an average hourly rate of pay. That hourly rate divided in half to $12.53.

The cost of the payments will be about $5 million, McNulty said. That's 45% of the $11.2 million the 12,000-student district is allocated in the second of three rounds of federal covid-19 relief funding.

School Board President Linda Remele said she was happy to be able to provide the payments as "there was not a person who worked for the district who has not gone above and beyond."

That includes not only teachers but also registrars, secretaries, nurses, principals, custodians, cafeteria workers and bus drivers, she said.

"We have put our hearts and souls into this year," McNulty said later, adding that it has been a life-changing year and that he is the better for it.

"I've heard it said, 'We made it,' but I want to say, 'We made it happen this year.' It wasn't just survival. It was something special."

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