Education Funding Deadline Passes Without Agreement

The legislature missed their self-imposed April 1 deadline for setting education funding for another year, while school districts are in the middle of hiring decisions for the coming year.

Union Public Schools held a job fair last weekend, and hired some new teachers, with plans to hire more - but they're not sure how many they'll be able to afford until the state budget becomes more clear. "If we had the money we would hire another 50-60 people," said Jay Loegering, the Director of Human Resources at Union.

Loegering says while the pay raise last year helped stop the flow of teachers out of education, so far it hasn't done much to bring new people in.

"We know there will be 1200 - 1500 openings across the state and there's not enough graduates coming out of programs to fill the openings that we have."

One year after the walkout, the pay raise, and $50 million more for general funding - the teachers union is asking for another pay raise for teachers and staff - and $150 million dollars more - so districts can actually hire more people - instead of just raising pay for the ones they have.

"So we can rehire teachers, counselors, the paraprofessionals that help the neediest students and those overburdened class sizes," said Alicia Priest, the President of the Oklahoma Education Association.

Priest believes public support is still behind teachers to ask for more classroom funding - as parents have seen that last years $50 million dollars didn't amount to much when it's divided between 700,000 students. "Half a textbook a child doesn't equate to bringing down class sizes or replacing those outdated history books we saw on the internet."

The legislature has $570 million more to spend this year than last - but the share that will go to education has yet to be decided.