Board approves $2,250 in stipends for proposed creative content team

The Greenwood District 51 school board approved a small stipend program to form a four‑person creative content team aimed at expanding the district’s social media and communications output.

Superintendent Dr Daniel Crockett proposed the team and a stipend schedule: $500 each for participating members and $750 for the coordinator, for a total annual stipend impact of $2,250. The plan calls for school‑based representatives to produce regular posts (goal of increasing annual posts from roughly 105 to 500), coordinate feature stories every nine weeks, and respond to basic social‑media inquiries using prepared scripts that route substantive questions to the appropriate staff.

Board members discussed which platforms to use (app, Facebook, text messaging, and potential Instagram integration) and asked about selection criteria for team members. Dr Crockett named likely team members in the discussion (including Maddie Bishop as a photographer and Blake Bishop as a proposed coordinator) and said selections would be talent‑based and drawn from existing staff who already do this work in some capacity. The board moved, seconded and approved dispensing the stipends by voice vote.

Dr Crockett said the stipend plan is modest and intended to expand the district’s reputation‑building and community outreach, not to outsource the work to a vendor. The administration will finalize participant assignments and implement the stipend distribution.