Staff in the Eureka Springs School District will have a little extra green heading into the holidays.

At its regular monthly meeting held Monday, Nov. 10, the school board approved a $1,500 bonus for all of the district’s contract staff who have worked at least 100 hours by Nov. 1.

Those who qualified will receive the bonus on Friday, Nov. 14, superintendent Bryan Pruitt said.

“We hope this will brighten your family time and show you how grateful we are for your diligence and hard work,” Pruitt wrote in a Nov. 11 email to staff. “It takes a team to make a school successful. You put in time and effort to educate, guide and encourage our students. I am proud to work with a great staff and know that I can depend on you to do your job well.

“I hope you enjoy Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year and the extra time home with family. I am thankful to serve alongside an excellent staff.”

Pruitt said he was happy the district was able to reward staff, something that’s been done in each of his 11 years as superintendent.

“Luckily, we’ve been blessed here that every year I’ve been here … we’ve done a bonus this time of the year for the holidays,” Pruitt said. “Sometimes it’s $1,000, sometimes it’s $1,500. I’m really proud to do it because I was at a school before, I was there 20 years, and never received a holiday bonus. I mean, not even a chicken leg.

“It’s always a privilege to me to be a part of it because it shows our staff the appreciation for their loyalty and dedication for their hard work that they do, and the preparation and the perseverance to make a good, solid team.”

OTHER ITEMS

The board approved a proposed budget, as required, for the 20272028 school year, and revised the district’s policy on cell phone use by students.

A new law state law that went into effect going into the school year banned cell phones by students during the day, but a recent hiccup discovered by districts across the state has led the state to instruct revisions to handbooks regarding the issue, Pruitt

said.

“What they found out is that some of these students that are taking concurrent courses through colleges and universities, when they go to log on, they have to be able to log into a Google account and that requires that two-factor authentication process,” the superintendent said. “So, the kids have got to have access to the phone to approve that. So, we have to approve it and put it in our handbook. And then we’ve got to resubmit that back to the state and then they will approve our handbook. But, they wanted that in there for those kids that are taking concurrent credit.”