Brownwood News – The Brownwood School Board held a regular and emergency board meeting Monday night at the school administration office.
The emergency portion of the meeting was to address a resolution to pay employees during emergency school closure.
The Board voted to pass the resolution which, according to Superintendent Dr. Joe Young, benefits hourly employees.
“Those employed by the district who get paid by the hour – custodians, bus drivers, maintenance workers, cafeteria workers – if they don’t work a certain number of hours, they don’t get paid and that’s not fair to them when the system shuts down. They would lose their benefits and lose their livelihood. We passed a resolution that, if we do have an emergency closure of the district, that those hourly employees will continue to get paid for a work week. Whenever school starts back up then they will go back to the other method,” Young said.
In other comments from Dr. Young, he said this extra week of Spring Break will not result in an extension of the school year. “The State of Texas has been very flexible in the way we’re going to be able to make this up. As long as we can show that we have instructional methods in place then we’re not going to have to make this time up. We’re going to use our two bad weather days and we’re going to apply for a COVID waiver, which the state allows us to do for these few days this week we’re missing. When we start back next week, whether kids or here or not, as long as we’re providing those instructional services then we’re not going to lose out on instruction,” Young said.
