KYLE MURPHYStaff Writer

The Tullahoma City Schools Board of Education approved a one-time bonus for teachers as defined by the Tennessee Education Freedom Act.

Earlier this year in a special session, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Tennessee Education Freedom Act, also known as the Voucher Bill. Part of the bill included appropriating funding for a one-time bonus to teachers employed in K-12 schools in the 2024-2025 school year.

When going over the resolution to approve the one-time bonus, TCS Director of Schools Dr. Catherine Stephens said although the school board was opposed of the bill, which included signing a resolution opposing the bill and State House Rep. Rush Bricken and State Sen. Janice Bowling voting no, the bill still passed, and as part of the legislation, there is a one-time teacher bonus of $2,000 to only eligible teachers in the current school year. The qualifications for teachers to receive the bonus must be full-time, have taught more than 120 days in the 2024-2025 school year and spent the majority of their day serving students. Stephens added the bonuses will not be paid out until the next school year.

“It’s just for teachers,” Stephens said.

Stephens said the state will provide a list all teachers listed for 2024-2025 by the following week of approval of the resolution, where the school district office will cross check its records, make any corrections, additions and changes, and send that list back along with the appropriate paperwork. The school district will then receive a follow-up list for the office to evaluate in May and then receive the final list of teachers for the bonus in June.

“We will have time to make sure that everybody who qualifies gets on that list,” Stephens said.

She then pointed out there is a caveat to the law. For the teachers to receive the one-time bonus, the school board must pass a resolution of the section that deals with the bonus. Stephens stated the attorney has worked on the resolution and both her and school board chairman Kim Uselton had reviewed the resolution before providing it to the school board members. 

“I want to make clear: this resolution in no way supports the Education Scholarship Freedom Act nor does it support vouchers in no way. Nothing has changed,” Stephens said. “It is simply a requirement to access funds for teachers so you know in our resolution it specifically states we are opting in to Sec. IV of the act that stipulates ‘a local board must formally affirm its intention to participate in order to receive these funds.’ That’s all we are saying.”

Stephens said until the board takes action and approves the resolution they will not have access to those funds. The board and district had until June 1 to approve the resolution.

“We do request approval of the resolution to opt-in to the teacher bonus section only of the Education Freedom Act,” Stephen said.

Once the motion was approved and opened to discussion, Uselton said the board spent a lot of time on the resolution in order make it clear that the board had not changed its stance on the Education Freedom Act.

“First of all, we don’t,” Uselton stated. “Second of all, Janice Bowling and Rush Bricken supported what we asked them to support. So it really would not have been very kind to them had we done something that was kind of a slap in their face, and this does not.”

Uselton added she and Stephens held off on bringing the resolution to the board to make sure all I’s were dotted and T’s were crossed.

School board member Andy Whitt said he supported the bonus for teachers as normally the board is faced with limitations in funding to provide the bonuses.

“This gives us the opportunity to access funds we wouldn’t typically access to award our teachers,” Whitt.

School board member Gigi Robison added she appreciated representatives Bowling and Bricken for listening to their community by voting no on the voucher bill.

“I would not have been interested in being a part of any resolution that did not state we were opposed to vouchers,” Robison said.

Stephens then read the final line in the resolution to the board and audience, which read as follows:

“This resolution is strictly limited to Sec. IV of the Act and should not be interpreted as an endorsement or approval of any other provision in this legislation.”

With no further discussion, the school board unanimously approved the resolution to accept the one-time teacher bonus as defined by the Education Freedom Act.