A school superintendent is using his first ever $10,000 bonus to pay for students’ college applications.
Rather than pocketing the extra money, this public school system superintendent is using it to cover the college application fees of his high school students.
44-year-old Grant Rivera, who has been the superintendent of the Marietta School District in Georgia since 2016, says that he is eligible for the bonus every three years if he receives a satisfactory performance review.
Rivera is donating the bonus to the Marietta Schools Foundation so it can help students who apply to colleges ahead of regular application deadlines.
Rivera told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution – “I don’t believe that a bonus provided by the board should be earned on the backs of the teachers. My hope is that it’s an incentive for kids to do the right thing.”
Of the 500 high schoolers in the graduating class, Rivera estimates that 150 to 200 students will apply to college.
If the application fees of his students exceed the amount of his $10,000 donation, he plans on paying out of pocket in order to cover the additional expenses—if there is any money leftover after his students have finished with their applications, then the funds will be used to finance college bus tours in Georgia.
The Marietta school district is considered above average. It has almost 9000 students in grades K-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 14 to 1.