Teachers at a California public school got their ‘life-changing’ bonuses this week after a woman donated $1 million. On Thursday, August 13, one hundred teachers in the Bay Area’s Ross Valley School District, located in the wealthy Northern California county of Marin, were asked to gather for a quick meeting. Once they entered the conference room, a woman stood up and directed the principals in attendance to hand out envelopes to each teacher. Having no clue what was happening, the teachers opened the envelopes and were surprised. Each envelope contained a cheque for $9,161.70. Now, that’s what you call the bonus of a lifetime!
$1 million for the teachers
Maja Kristin, a local resident, made a $1 million donation to the district’s teachers, according to KRON4. The money was split evenly among every educator in the district. Her donation came as a surprise. There was no press release, no introduction. She simply walked into that room to say: I see you, and what you’re being paid is wrong. “We as citizens, we can write direct checks,” Kristin told the assembled teachers, instructing them to open their envelopes. She made the donation after being upset over the ‘injustice’ of Marin County’s public school funding.Marin County was earlier ranked the 10th wealthiest county in the United States. San Anselmo and Fairfax, the communities served by Ross Valley, sit in the rolling hills north of San Francisco, where property values have climbed steadily for decades. Yet somewhere along the way, the district’s funding hadn’t kept pace. Kristin decided to make the donation after she learned that Ross Valley was in the bottom 4% for funding in California and that the teachers were paid the lowest in Marin County.“The property values are really high in our district, but the property, the assessed value, is really low because people move here and they stay here,” Tyler Graff, Ross Valley’s superintendent, told the outlet.“So Prop 13 has kept our tax base quite low compared to other Marin districts,” he added. The California tax rule caps property tax at 1% of a property’s assessed value.
A ‘life-changing’ bonus
For the teachers, the bonus was more than what they could ever ask for. The best part about it? It came out of the blue. A true surprise. The teachers expressed that they “couldn’t be more grateful” for the donation.“It’s life-changing,” Sydney Dean, a teacher, said.“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a beautiful gift from someone I don’t even know or haven’t taught their kid,” Amber Bunnell-Wild added.Prior to the meeting, the teachers also shared their personal stories and how the money could aid them.“I have three kids, and there’s lots of activities that they want to do that we can’t always afford to pay for because of my salary. And it’s with this kind of money that there are things I can say yes to that they want to do, so it’s really exciting and huge for our family,” teacher Anna Schnell told the outlet.“This feels great to have people right here in the community wanting to support public education and public educators,” Eric Brandt said.Kristin hopes that her actions will inspire other Marin residents to step forward. “My hope was that folks like you would be here, and word would get out, and Marin residents who value public education would step forward one way or another, whether it’s a direct gift or a political act, or a foundation pool,” she told the outlet.
