BRISTOL, Tenn. (WJHL) — The Bristol, Tennessee Board of Education on Monday approved one-time bonuses for teachers and support staff.

Teachers and other eligible full-time employees will get $2,000 bonuses and eligible part-time employees will get $1,000 bonuses.

The teacher bonuses will be paid for by the state under the governor’s expanded school voucher program. The bonuses for everyone else will be paid for by the school system.

Board of Education Chair Eric Cuddy said extending bonuses to teachers and support staff was the right thing to do.

“They’re answering calls at night, they’re answering text messages at night, they go above and beyond their duties,” Cuddy said. “But also we want to make sure that our support staff and our other full-time employees who do so well and give so much time to their job and dedication to our school system, we want to make sure, that they also receive, a gift and a bonus showing our appreciation for them as well.”

In order to get state funding for the teacher bonuses, the board had to affirm its participation in Section 4 of the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, which was passed by the General Assembly in late January.