Clint ISD teachers to receive up to $12K in bonuses thanks to $16 million grant
EL PASO, Texas – A non-profit in partnership with Clint ISD was awarded a $16 million dollar grant over a three-year period to help compensate educators and close the achievement gap between high and low performing students.
The Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program is a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Clint ISD was one of only three institutions in Texas to receive the grant this year and one of just 22 in the entire country.
The Three Rivers Foundation, an education non-profit, proposed the grant application and is working in partnership with Clint.
Eligible teachers will be able to receive up to $12,000 dollars in bonuses over the next three years thanks to the grant. They'll receive $3,000 per year plus a $1,000 retention bonus for each of the three years.
"Our teachers were in the classrooms [during the pandemic]," Dr. Juan Martinez, Clint ISD Superintendent, said. "They never really went home. We asked a lot of them. I thought, how do we compensate them? Obviously, adding $16 million to the budget is not possible. So when I received the news of these funds, I mean, that was the most exciting news. This is now the way that I can compensate our teachers for the work they've done."
"Honestly, it was a little unbelievable," Rosa Flora, an algebra and geometry teacher at Horizon High School, said. "They talk about these things we're gonna get, and I'm like well when is it going to happen? But then they tell me a week later that my students are meeting some of these requirements. It's definitely something very, very exciting. We work very hard with the students, the students work very hard, so already having that reward plus something on top that is definitely something good."
The focus will be on teacher effectiveness and student growth in Core Content Areas and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs.
