RISON - The Woodlawn School Board voted Monday night to join a possible lawsuit challenging the Arkansas Leg‐islative Council’s authority re‐quiring school districts to use federal COVID relief money through the American Rescue Plan for teacher and staff bonuses rather than other uses.
Meanwhile, the Woodlawn School Board also approved providing those staff members who volunteered to get the train‐ing to become armed certified school security guards with a one-time stipend of $1,200.
Those matters and others were addressed during the Woodlawn School Board’s regular monthly meeting Monday night.
Last year, the Arkansas De‐partment of Education allotted Woodlawn and other public school districts in the state with money from the American Res‐cue Plan’s Elementary and Sec‐ondary Schools Emergency Re‐lief (ESSER) fund. The money was meant to help districts cope with fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The only stipulations for using the money was that the expense had to be one approved under the American Rescue Plan guidelines. The approved projects ranged from ventilation and technology to mental health services and helping students make up for lost learning due to the pandemic.
On July 21, the Arkansas Leg‐islative Council voted to require all school districts to use their American Rescue Plan money to pay one-time bonuses of $5,000 to teachers and $2,500 to other staff members.
The Council’s move came af‐ter Gov. Asa Hutchinson had suggested using some of the state’s $1.6 billion surplus to raise teacher salaries. The gov‐ernor initially suggested raising the state minimum teacher (see WOODLAWN page 8) (continued from page 1) salary to $46,000 before eventu‐ally reducing it to $42,000. The current minimum salary is $36,000.
Legislators did not support the idea of addressing teacher pay during the special legislative session that is currently under‐way. Instead, some legislators aid they preferred the salary in‐creases be discussed during the regular General Assembly early next year so the legislature could come up with a way to fund the pay raises over the long-term.
Without that support, Hutchin‐son pulled the teacher salaries off the special session agenda, resulting in several teachers voicing their disapproval to state legislators. As a result, the Leg‐islative Council voted to have school district use the American Rescue Plan money for teacher and staff bonuses.
The problem with that move is that several school districts had already used or were planning to use the money for other pur‐poses.
Superintendend Dr. Kevin Hancock said Woodlawn was granted about $541,000 through the American Resuce Plan. He said the district used about $120,000 for new security cam‐eras on campus and spent an‐other $100,000 on programs ad‐dressing the loss of learning due to the pandemic.
He said the district was also looking at using about $150,000 for replacing some of the air conditioning/heating units on campus, but that has been put on hold for now.
Woodlawn currently has about $330,000 left in the American Rescue Plan fund. Hancock said balance is not enough to cover the bonuses that the Legislative Council was requesting. He said it would cost the school district more than $400,000 for the bonuses once the benefits were figured.
The Marion School District contacted its legal counsel to draft a lawsuit challenging the Legislative Council’s authority to dictate how schools could spend the federal funds. The lawsuit will only become vali‐date should the state actually deny a school district from using the American Rescue Funds for anything other than the bonuses. Should that happen, the lawsuit would be filed.
Marion sent a letter to other school districts across the state inviting them to join in if they like. The Woodlawn School Board voted to the accept the in‐vitation. The neighboring Cleve‐land County School Board voted to do the same during its meet‐ing Monday night.
Hancock said the state Depart‐ment of Education recently in‐formed the school districts to re‐spond in one of three ways to the Legislative Council’s require‐ment: submit a plan on how the district is using the American Rescue Plan to pay the bonuses; submit a plan detailing how the district is revising its current plans to pay the bonuses; or if the money had already been spent or allocated, provide justi‐fication for those expenditures or allocations.
While Hancock said the onetime bonuses would be nice for staff, he said he prefers increas‐ing teacher pay over the long term since it would help retain teachers.
Security Stipend
All five members of the Wood‐lawn School Board approved paying those staff members who are currently undergoing the training to become certified se‐curity officers a one-time stipend of $1,200.
Hancock pointed out that the vote was to actually create a $1,200 stipend in the classified salary schedule that would not only pay those who are currently in training, but also for those who may become security offi‐cers in the future.
In a previous school board meeting, Hancock told the board that in surveying other school districts who already had certi‐fied security officers on campus, the district pay each person a one-time payment of about $1,200 to pay for a firearm, am‐munition and other equipment that would be required for the training and certification.
Hancock said the training and certification process is still un‐derway for the Woodlawn secu‐rity officers. Previously, he said those getting the certification must under a background check and psychological evaluation as well as 60 hours of training in an Arkansas State Police course.
While Hancock has not re‐vealed the number of staff mem‐bers who are undergoing the training, he said his goal was to have five to 15 certified so there would be security officers scat‐tered throughout the campus.
Other Business
In other business, the Wood‐lawn School Board:
• Approved a bid of $5,785 from Pine Bluff Heat and Air to replace an air conditioning unit at the high school.
• Accepted the resignation of the previous school nurse due to health reasons, and approved the hiring of Sarah Young Slaughter as the new school nurse.
• Approved step increases for two teachers who received their master’s degrees over the sum‐mer break. Those teachers who get their master’s move up to a higher pay schedule.