PGISD Board approves COVID-19 bonuses, hires literacy coordinator
TEXARKANA, Texas — The Pleasant Grove Independent School District Board of Trustees approved a one-time $1,000 stipend for teachers and staff, in addition to hiring Kristi Deloach for the newly-created district literacy coordinator position, in a regular meeting Thursday night.
The one-time bonus payment to teachers and staff is meant to show app re - c ia t ion for their additional efforts and hours worked due to COVID this year. Originally, the payment was to be $1,000 for teachers, nurses and nurse aides, and campus administrators
and a $600 payment for the rest of their employees.
The board, however, made an amendment to the item to make it an even $1,000 for all employees.
“Our staff here at Pleasant Grove has worked extremely hard to provide a great learning experience for our students,” Superintendent Chad Pirtle said. “We’d like to provide compensation for our staff in the form of a bonus.”
Board member Mark Addington brought up the idea to make the bonus $1,000 across the board, and Brandy Eldridge said the district should incur the cost of the taxes taken from the bonuses to make it an even $1,000.
“Everybody’s impacted, everybody’s job description changed, everybody had to work harder,” Addington said. “I don’t want to put any of our people that we value in a position where they feel like they’re not as valued.”
The board hired Kristi Deloach, who currently serves as the PG Middle School campus learning coordinator, to now serve as district literacy coordinator.
PGISD approved the new position of district literacy coordinator last month to develop a program of instruction to address district-literacy and improve reading and writing skills among students.
DeLoach has been with PGISD for one and a half years. During her 12 years in education, she has held teaching and coaching roles at the elementary, intermediate and middle school levels in Texarkana Arkansas ISD, Texarkana ISD and Pleasant Grove ISD.
In other news from the meeting, a resolution was passed that will go towards creating a new school-based police department, after deploying a school resource officer (SRO) program for about 20 years.
During his district updates, Pirtle said student enrollment is now up to 2,251 students, an increase of six students from last month.