Courtney Buuck thought there was some kind of mistake.
When she learned that she received a $40,000 bonus payment on top of her base teacher’s salary last fall, she was in shock. Like other staff at United Schools of Indianapolis’ three charter schools, she was eligible for a bonus based on her year-end evaluation score.
She just didn’t think she’d come out on top.
“I am just really hard on myself as an educator,” said Buuck, who teaches kindergarten at the Avondale Meadows Academy K-4 school. “And then once the shock wore off, I was just really proud of myself.”
Buuck plans to save her bonus to help her purchase her first home.
Buuck’s bonus comes from the $12.5 million Vigilance in Teaching and Learning — or VITAL — Trust, which launched in 2024 and pledged to support performance-based bonuses for staff at the charter network for 25 years. In the first year of awards, she received nearly $16,000.
Now, another venture with essentially the same name is expanding merit bonuses to 11 more Indianapolis charter schools this year in an effort to attract and retain high-quality educators. In April, the philanthropic VITAL Foundation awarded roughly $1.3 million in its first round of grants for teacher bonuses at high-needs schools that could range from $1,000 to $10,000.