Employees of GESD will receive $3,500 incentive

BAJO EL SOL

SAN LUIS, Ariz. – Most employees of the Gadsden School District (GESD) will receive a $3,500 incentive in May thanks to a state grant whose use was approved by the district’s Board of Directors.

On March 21, the board members approved the expenditure on the onetime incentive to be granted with funds from the Educational Disparities and Teacher Development grant approved by the state to be exercised no later than August.

In a statement, it was announced that the incentive aims to thank the staff for the success the school district has experienced, being “number one in Yuma County.”

The incentive will be granted to full-time and part-time employees hired before January 1, 2024, and active as of May 31, temporary or substitute employees, except for on-call substitutes.

The funds are part of a $5 million grant approved for the school district in June 2023.

“It’s an incentive for employees, and unlike the incentive we’ve been giving them for the past three years, it’s a flat amount of $3,500 for fulltime and part-time employees. When we received this money, we sat down to plan with the board and have worked for a year to give it to them,” commented Lizette Esparza, superintendent of GESD.

“Almost all employees qualify; those who will not are those hired after January. We estimate that around 830 people will benefit,” Esparza added, stating that the incentive will be for teachers, assistants, maintenance staff, and general personnel who meet the requirements to receive it.

“It’s an incentive to thank the efforts of teachers and all employees,” she emphasized.

Esparza added that another use of the funds from the aforementioned grant was the hiring of school personnel, including a couple of fulltime kindergarten teachers and two additional instructional assistants for each campus.

The superintendent said that the Board of Directors still has to cast one more vote for the incentive to potentially be disbursed on May 3rd.