SENATOBIA, Miss. — Mississippi school districts are left trying to figure out how to get all the money they need after voters rejected Initiative 42.
The proposed constitutional amendment would have changed school funding in the state. But it caused a lot of confusion for voters, especially after legislators added an alternative to the ballot.
Administrators told WREG that teachers already dig into their own pockets to make sure kids have what they need.
They said Initiative 42 would have brought some relief, but now that hope is gone.
Tate County Superintendent Daryl Scoggin is pointing the finger at state lawmakers for Initiative 42 failing.
“Their intent was to confuse people,” he said.
Fifty-four percent of voters rejected the change, something Scoggin said will make life difficult for not only educators across the state, but also children.
“We could put more teachers in the classrooms. We could lower the class size.”
Those opposed to Initiative 42 did not like that a judge could decide school funding if lawmakers couldn’t agree on a plan.
Some said the issue was so confusing, it should have never been on the ballot in the first place.
“If you don’t have the explanation of why, why you would be voting like that, then it shouldn’t have been on there at all,” a parent, Josh Collins, said.
In 1997, state lawmakers passed the Mississippi Adequate Education Program to ensure each district would get enough financial support to fund its schools.
But the legislature has only fully funded the program twice since then.
“There are other years that they could have fully funded it and they didn’t,” Scoggin said. “The question is: Why?”
Scoggin said his district and others across the state will have to continue fighting for every dollar — something he will do, but something he hoped wouldn’t be necessary.
“Why don’t they look at what our students need and why don’t they go ahead and follow the law. They expect all of us to follow the law.”
Scoggin said over the last seven years, the funding in Tate County has been cut by $1.4 million a year.