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Bonuses On The Way For Some Teachers

Courtney Mason in her classroom at Piney Grove Elementary.
Lisa Worf
/
WFAE News
Courtney Mason in her classroom at Piney Grove Elementary.

State board of education will vote on disbursing bonuses to some teachers this week.

Courtney Mason in her classroom at Piney Grove Elementary.
Lisa Worf
Courtney Mason in her classroom at Piney Grove Elementary.

Many teachers across the state are set to get belated Christmas gifts in the form of merit bonuses, pending a vote this week by the state board of education.

General Assembly members approved nearly $14 million last year to reward teachers whose students showed growth in third-grade reading and passed advanced placement and international baccalaureate exams.

With the state board’s approval, high school teachers will receive a $50 bonus for each of their students who passed an AP or IB exam, up to $2,000. AP and IB courses are more rigorous and are designed to prepare students for college. In Charlotte about 9,500 students got passing AP and IB grades. When social security paid by the state is added in, that translates into local teachers being poised to receive nearly $510,000.

Third-grade reading teachers had to rank in the top 25 percent in their districts in order to be eligible for bonuses. Their students also had to show improvement over the past year. Locally, all but 11 of the 125 teachers in that top percentile qualified for the bonuses. They will each receive nearly $4,200 in merit bonuses. 

Copyright 2017 WFAE

Gwendolyn is an award-winning journalist who has covered a broad range of stories on the local and national levels. Her experience includes producing on-air reports for National Public Radio and she worked full-time as a producer for NPR’s All Things Considered news program for five years. She worked for several years as an on-air contract reporter for CNN in Atlanta and worked in print as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun Media Group, The Washington Post and covered Congress and various federal agencies for the Daily Environment Report and Real Estate Finance Today. Glenn has won awards for her reports from the Maryland-DC-Delaware Press Association, SNA and the first-place radio award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
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