Governor Rewards Teachers: $5,000, $10,000 Each

Certificated staff--more than 400 at four Long Beach Unified School District elementary schools and one high school--will soon be receiving $3,395,000 in the Governor's Certificated Staff Performance Incentive awards for increasing student performance. The 430 qualifying staff include 175 at Wilson High School and 74 at Whittier Elementary School. They will each receive $10,000. Their counterparts will each receive $5,000 at Addams, 69 staff; Edison, 61; and Robinson, 51. Franklin Middle School staff narrowly missed qualifying for $5,000 bonuses. The school ranked 59th among California's middle schools in improvement. The winners included only the top 54 middle school gainers. Awards ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 are being distributed to staff at 304 of California's most improved elementary, middle and high schools that ranked in deciles 1 through 5 on the Academic Performance Index (API). The $100 million was included in last year's state budget. To be considered for the award program, low performing schools must have made substantial academic improvement over two years, exceeding twice their API growth target in the second year. Schools meeting these demanding criteria were ranked. Those with the greatest gains received the highest awards. Approximately 11,000 California school staff including teachers, principals, vice principals, counselors, nurses and librarians will receive these incentive awards; $25,000 each to 1,056 certificated staff at the most improved schools and bonuses of $10,000 and $5,000 to nearly 10,000 certificated employees statewide.