[4/20/04]The Legislature’s failure to agree on education funding is pushing local administrators to delay renewing contracts and has some teachers in the Vicksburg Warren School District worried about their jobs.

Third-grade teacher Dara Goree works under the Delta Initiative, a scholarship program at Delta State University that requires participants to teach in the Mississippi Delta for at least three years to repay the program.

But, having graduated in December, she’s in her first semester of teaching and believes she’ll be among the first to go if there are cuts.

Other positions may open in the region, but Goree likes it in the Vicksburg Warren School District. “This is where I’m from, and I definitely want to stay here,” she said.

House members have approved a spending plan fully funding education at all levels, but relying, in part, on changing the state’s income projection for the 12 months starting July 1. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee and Gov. Haley Barbour have proposed a plan that would allocate $161 million less, and that would mean a $2.3 million shortfall to the VWSD.

Teachers in the 9,200-student district are typically notified in April whether their contracts will be renewed. Superintendent James Price said administrators will not renew the 616 contracts until the state’s budget is known.

“It makes little difference what a superintendent says to the teachers about his belief on funding because, always, in the backs of their minds is that chance that they might lose their jobs,” Price said. “Waiting this late to issue contracts imparts a tremendous hardship on the teachers, business office personnel and the district as a whole.”

Misty Hossley has taught in the district for five years and is a first-grade teacher at Redwood, but would still like assurances.

“I’m one of the newer teachers here, so if they did it by years of experience, I’d be one of the top ones on the list,” she said, adding that the school has some teachers in their first year. “I’d hate to know that we were going to lose them.”

The delay has teachers with years of experience worrying as well.

“It’s sad that we even have to worry about this,” said Redwood teacher Jill Oldenburg, in her 16th year. “It’s hard enough to get someone to go into teaching.”

And Lou Ann Dykes, who’s taught for 13 years, said the uncertainty is frustrating.

“Waiting is the hardest part,” she said.

If there are layoffs, teachers not hired back will receive their last checks in August.

State Sen. Mike Chaney, R-Vicksburg, is chairman of the Senate Education Committee. He has said teachers and students are being used as pawns by those seeking to create undue alarm about next year’s school funding. The legislative session is to end May 9.