The Eureka Springs School Board approved a LEARNS Act-influenced salary schedule at its regular meeting Monday, April 10.

Superintendent Bryan Pruitt said the schedule will be frozen for now while the district adjusts to the mandated $50,000 starting salary for teachers.

“We’ve got to give everybody $50,000 so a new salary schedule was approved and we froze it for a while until we know that it’s going to be sustainable and we’re able to pay that,” Pruitt said. “There’s some [staff] that’s going to get some money out of this and some that don’t get much [of a raise] at all, but that’s just the way it is.”

Pruitt said he thinks the wait-and-see mindset when dealing with salaries is something most districts in the state will deal with.

“I think most schools, their salary schedules are going to be like this, $50,000 for a bachelor’s and master’s for the first few years,” he said. “And then you start rebuilding that salary schedule after you figure out if the funding is going to be there to maintain it.”

The new minimum salaries make teaching a lot more appealing, Pruitt said.

“Teacher salaries in the state are going from 49th in the United States to fourth overall and that’s a good thing,” he said. “When you start thinking about it, if you make $50,000 and have a 190-day contract, and you’re off Thanksgiving, you’re off Christmas, you’re off Spring Break and other holidays — that’s not a bad gig for that.

“And here at Eureka we pay the insurance. That’s kind of our incentive to try to bring people here now since we’re all paying about the same amount.”

In other action, the board approved a recent Legislative Audit, Pruitt said.

“We had no findings or anything,” he said. “We had a clean audit.”

The board also heard an update on plans for a new cafeteria for elementary and middle school students, which is still over what was budgeted.

“We came in about $1 million over budget,” Pruitt said. “So, we’re just trying to get some pencils sharpened there to figure out what we can to give us a new cafeteria, but still be in good stewards of our district’s money.”

Other approvals by the board included five resignations including band and choir teacher Rachel Crowley, preschool teacher Taylor Dannenfelser, thirdgrade teacher Jennifer Robison, facilities director Mike Dwyer and Angie Hutson, the district’s technology coordinator.