Controversial personnel changes at River City Early College are part of an effort to “ensure all of our students” receive a quality education, according to the Vicksburg Warren School District superintendent.

Dr. Tori Holloway met with The Post to talk about changes at the school and his vision for moving forward.

“What’s going on at RCEC is not isolated to RCEC,” Holloway said. “As a district, because of the statewide and nationwide teacher shortages, we are having to move some folks around to ensure all of our students — and I want to emphasize ‘all’— receive a quality education. 

“As a superintendent, I have a policy that’s aligned with state law that allows us to move our faculty members around as needed within the district,” he continued. “Sometimes we have to make decisions about the district that affect individual schools that go above what the principal would like to do. Those are not always comfortable decisions, but my responsibility is the 7,000 students we have and the 16 school sites that we have. Every program is important, every student, every school is important, but sometimes we have to make decisions for the whole district.”

At the center of public outcry are the departures of RCEC Counselor Marian Richardson, senior class advisor Amber Davis and junior class advisor Camille Buxton. Following the departure of Richardson, an online petition was created to “Stop mistreatment of RCEC Students, Staff, and Faculty by Dr. Kenitra Ezi” and garnered 255 signatures as of June 25. Ezi was hired as principal at RCEC in August 2024.

The petition claimed “Students, staff, and faculty at RCEC have been consistently negatively impacted by the actions and words of Dr. Kenitra Ezi. Without change RCEC will continue to decline and the harassment by Ezi will not end. RCEC will continue to shrink both in staff and students as the environment of RCEC grows more restrictive and less like the promise to a better future it once was. It’s time to act, after one year of letting it run its course, it has become increasingly clear that it is time for action.”

Although school officials could not confirm the status of the teachers’ employment, The Post has been told Richardson, Davis and Buxton have been placed in positions at other area schools, with those positions likely to be confirmed at Thursday’s upcoming VWSD Board of Trustees meeting. 

Holloway said the district is in the process of  “reshuffling” personnel to meet needs. For example, if the district needs a certified math teacher at one school, Holloway may reassign a teacher from another school to cover that gap if the other school has more certified teachers. Teacher transfers are confidential personnel information, according to Holloway.

“We’re making personnel changes,” he said. “Because of the nationwide and statewide teacher shortage, we’re reshuffling personnel within the district. We have 47 vacancies currently. We ended the year with 12 vacancies.”

While Holloway said the district’s rate of vacancies is “not outside what the norm is nationwide and statewide,” certain subject areas are experiencing severe shortages of certified teachers. The Mississippi Department of Education designated the Vicksburg Warren School District as being in critical need for teachers in subject areas of special education, math, foreign language and science (biology, chemistry, and physics) during the 2024-25 school year.

“Alabama did a supplement to recruit math and science teachers, a pretty big supplement, to add math and science teachers,” Holloway said, explaining the recruiting challenges faced by the VWSD. “To add to that, we recently fell back to 51st in teacher pay nationwide. Things are changing. There are not many (college) graduates coming out who are going into education. We have made adjustments in personnel since I came here, and part of that is us being efficient with the teaching staff we have.”

Results from the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) 2024-25 Educator Shortage survey, which was released in December 2024, show there are 5,160 vacancies among teachers, administrators and school support staff across the state. Educator Shortage survey results show an increase of 148 compared to the 2023-24 school year and a decrease of 343 since the initial survey administration in 2021-22. 

“It’s a district-wide decision,” Holloway  said. “We have students who don’t have math teachers. We have students who don’t have certified teachers, where we’re having to put teacher assistants in. If we’ve got somewhere where we can pull a person from, that’s what any good principal, any good school district does. We move staff around all the time. If we can’t fill this vacancy, but this person is certified in that, how can we make sure kids get the basics of what they need?”

Holloway said filling the needs requires moving teachers throughout the district “because we don’t have special ed teachers. We don’t have science teachers. We don’t have math teachers. There’s not an easy fix. There’s nothing easy about what we have to do, especially when education is under attack the way it is, so my responsibility is to do the best we can with the situation we have. 

“That’s not always comfortable for people and kids. But, if a student doesn’t have a science teacher, then we may have to say ‘you’re certified in science, we need you over here to take care of the kids.’

“The thing I’ve tried to emphasize to educators is it’s not about where – it’s about who. As long as you’re serving children for the greater good of the district and the community, that’s the most important thing.”

Editor’s Note: Read more about overall changes at RCEC here. Read more about the district’s policies for separating with staff here.