Trenton Special School District employees receive a holiday bonus

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect our school systems. Teachers and other staff members are putting in extra work to ensure students are getting a good education. Here in Trenton, that work is not going unnoticed. Officials are giving their staff members a holiday bonus.

The eight-month-long COVID-19 pandemic caused teaching and learning routines to change, bringing about challenges employees had never seen before.

“That’s been an interesting eight months. And our people have not only pulled it off, but they’ve gotten very good at it. And so right now we have kids who are in person, we have kids who are in virtual, and we have kids doing both,” said Tim Haney, the director of schools for Trenton Special School District.

Haney believes saying thank you is good but wanted to show the employees a little more appreciation.

“We wanted a more tangible way of saying thank you than just thank you.” thank you” is excellent, and it is sincere,” said Haney

The district reached a memorandum of understanding, and Trenton’s education association granted all employees a gift for the holiday season.

“We came up with a nice, basically Christmas bonus, and it’s basically an appreciation for everything they’ve done from march until today and everything they will do going forward,” said Haney.

That $300 bonus will go out this Friday in conjunction with American Education Week.

The district has three institutions, an elementary, a middle, and a high school: about 1400 students and nearly 150 employees. Teachers, including bus drivers, teacher assistants, and anyone with an assignment in the system will receive the same amount.