(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds is using eight-and-a-half million dollars of federal pandemic relief funds to provide bonuses to teachers whose students make big gains in the classroom. The money may be used to supplement the salaries of the top 10 percent of teachers in a district whose students show their reading, math, and other skills have advanced beyond their grade level.

Each Iowa school district may apply for up to half a million dollars in grant money for the current year and another 500-thousand in the next academic year.

An individual teacher may receive a bonus of up to 25-hundred dollars in both years. Schools have until January 10th to apply for the grants.