Support workers in Baton Rouge public schools are in line to receive $1,000 one-time checks just in time for Christmas.
The move is meant to ensure compliance with an executive order from Gov. Jeff Landry mandating stipends this year for school employees across the state.
Teachers, however, are not expected to receive any additional money, since they are already enjoying a sizable district-funded pay raise approved in June, one that added $8,500 a year on average to their salaries.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday recommended, in a unanimous vote, issuing $1,000 checks to be paid Dec. 23 to all support workers in the district. Only board member Dadrius Lanus was absent. The board is expected to give final approval to the extra check at its Nov. 19 meeting.
The proposal has been in the making since June when Landry issued his executive order. It cut $168 million from the state’s main education fund and mandated that money be used to give $2,000 stipends to teachers and $1,000 to school support staff. Some educators and support staff, however, were excluded.
From 2023 to 2025, the Legislature allocated about $200 million each year to give one-time payments to teachers, as well as staff, instead of permanent raises. Voters in 2025, and again this past May, rejected proposed constitutional amendments that would have liquidated certain state education trust funds to fund permanent teacher pay raises to replace the annual stipends.
After that amendment failed, rather than once again digging up additional money in the state budget to cover the stipends, Landry ordered school districts to pay them out of already authorized state education funding.
Landry, however, left a couple of ways districts could be exempted. One way was if the districts already pay out extra stipends that are equal to or greater than the ones called for in his order. Another is if, like East Baton Rouge, they have approved sizable pay raises for the 2026-27 school year.
However, East Baton Rouge’s big pay raise qualified for only a partial waiver. That is because many support workers received smaller increases of less than $1,000 or, in some cases, no raises at all.
The $1,000 Christmas stipend would allow East Baton Rouge to be in full compliance with Landry’s order.
Board President Shashonnie Steward said these checks should help assuage support workers unhappy with how they fared with the recent district pay raises.
“This is for you,” Steward said. “This is the money you’ve been waiting on.”
The checks have an estimated total cost of $755,160. The withheld state funding will cover a little more half that price tag. The school system is adding $358,214 from its funding to cover the rest.