The Fort Stockton Independent School District School Board approved one-time stipends in the amount of $1,000 near the holiday season in 2020 and 2021 due to financial impact the pandemic made on employees and their families.

The Fort Stockton ISD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Zamora and the school board decided to continue that $1,000 stipend this year in response to inflation and the availability of funds, which may not always be there in the future.

“Due to the nature of what is happening with inflation and the struggles that many our staff are going through, we have formed a resolution with our attorneys that would allow for our school district to allow for even more time and provide up to $1,000 for employees in good standing. I hope this is something we can do every year. I don’t know that we can, but we want to continue to reward our staff,” Zamora said at last week’s school board meeting.

“Last year the state of Texas contributed millions of dollars of ESSER funds to the TRS Active Care System, that’s insurance for school employees. Now the duration causes them to reduce premiums for probably the first time in the history of the active care and that savings was passed on to us. So, we almost have the funding to cover. We’re just a bit short but our Director of Finance Maria (Gomez) was able to work some magic to make this happen.”

Full-time employees within the district in good standing will receive a stipend by the end of this month according to Zamora. The stipend will include contract and at-will staff.

Memorandum of understanding targets improvement for guardian plan

To further improve the safety and security capabilities of the Fort Stockton ISD, guardians within the district will now be able to use the county’s gun range for training purposes with no incurred expenses to the FSISD or the employee following a memorandum of understanding that was approved at the school board’s regular meeting on Oct. 24.

“The county will work with us for our first group of guardians to conduct training. We’d like to establish a relationship with them so that future training can be conducted. In part this is the school district absolving the county of the responsibility of an accident or something like that if it were to occur but at the same time it grants us permission to use the county range for the purposes of conducting training for our guardian program,” Zamora said.

The agreement states that are guardians have met the following criteria: volunteer staff selected by campus and district leadership teams, have concealed handgun license (CHL), have completed required guardian training and maintain handgun qualifications annually with the specific handgun they carry.