CCSB Approves One-Time Staff Payments

RISON - The Cleveland County School Board unanimously approved one-time “retention bonuses” for all full-time and part-time staff during its regular monthly meeting Monday night.In addition, the board also heard a report on how high school students performed on the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System (ATLAS) interim exams.Superintendent Davy King recommended that the board approve one-time payments of $1,000 for each full-time staff member and $500 for part-time staff and bus drivers. King said the overall cost for the one-time payments is $106,467.75, and the payments were already included in this year’s budget. King said he felt the payments were deserved seeing how the district was able to grow it’s year-end balance last year thanks to the extra work by the staff. The district was able to move about $450,000 into its building fund thanks to an end-of-the-year surplus in the general fund to wrap up the 2024-25 school year in June.Those voting for King’s recommendation were Nick Bennett, Helen Browning-Grice, William King and Sheila Towery. School board president Harrell Wilson, Kelly Taylor and Tony White were not at the meeting. Grice, vice president of the board, presided over the meeting in Wilson’s absence.Interim Test ResultsMeanwhile, staff at Rison High School gave the school board updates on how students performed on the first ATLAS interim exams of the school  year. The interim exams are mid-year assessments used to monitor student progress on grade-level standards for ATLAS. The first interim tests were given in October and the next will be given in February. The final exam will be given later in the spring semester.The interim tests cover all the material within a given subject area even though the students are still learning much of that material. Interim tests are measured like regular ATLAS tests in that they are graded on four levels: Level 4 (Adv...