This year, the state legislature passed several bills to improve education funding in Mississippi, including a measure expanding the Education Enhancement Fund. It’s a pot of money available to all public school teachers for the purchase of classroom supplies. Nancy Loome, Executive Director of the Parents’ Campaign, says the funds in previous years have been insufficient, and many educators had to pay out of pocket for materials.
“So when we increase the teacher supply, that means that teachers have more state funding that they can use for instructional materials, printers inside their classrooms, or anything that they need to support their instruction,” says Loome. “And that of course increases the quality of education provided our children.”
This funding is accessed through teachers’ EEF cards, which were distributed this week according to changes in state law.
Cagney Weaver is a 5th-grade teacher in Biloxi. She says this increase in funds nearly doubled her individual budget. In addition to the usual purchases of school supplies, Weaver says she can now expand her curriculum to include robotics.
“Mississippi is going and implementing Computer Science curriculum this year, and so the need for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) activities, and usually yours STEM materials are a little bit more expensive because they are involving computers and things like that. So the extra funding definitely allows us to purchase more hands-on STEM-related things.”
Teachers have also received a pay increase this year as part of the START Act, and will receive their first paychecks with these adjustments this month.
