Shealy and Kilroy confirm summer school teacher pay and supply errors

Two Vicksburg Daily News stories (1) (2) earlier this week about summer school teachers not being paid as promised and working without school supplies were confirmed by Superintendent Chad Shealy and media contact person, Christi Kilroy.

Yesterday, July 8, in an email to educators, Warren County School District Superintendent Chad Shealy confirmed the school district made an error in telling summer school teachers they would be paid on July 15. “We have learned that an on-site District employee may have given unauthorized incorrect information about when to expect payment and we apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this misinformation may have caused,” stated Shealy.

The email went on to address the school supplies that were promised to the educators. Shealy wrote, “Another concern that was expressed in the email I received was that some teachers purchased classroom supplies with personal funds.  Mrs. Cassandra Lewis is working on a process for allowable reimbursement to be submitted for approval to the school board at the July meeting.  An email will be sent to you defining that process.”

However, while Kilroy has not responded to the Vicksburg Daily News multiple requests for clarification on the shortage of supplies, we have received messages clarifying educators did not have supplies throughout the summer school term. Two separate communications to the Vicksburg Daily News say the teachers never got the supplies.

Regarding a claim that educators had summer school supplies, one communication stated, “This is a complete lie. We haven’t gotten ANY supplies delivered. We’ve been using paper, pencils, and scissors from the persons room we are in. They do run us copies but that’s it. We’ve even had to tear handwriting paper in half just to save on paper bc [sic] we literally have none.”

Additionally, another person questioned why Kilroy was at the school on Thursday. The communication said, “…she never commented to the staff but if she’s going to claim we got the supplies she should have shown us where they were.”

At the time of this writing, Christi Kilroy with the school district has responded only to the request for a copy of the email sent by Shealy to the summer school teachers. The Vicksburg Daily News still awaits a response to multiple requests for additional information and clarifications on several other topics and issues.

In 2020, the Vicksburg Daily News learned the school district advises educators to not communicate with the press. This has left many educators feeling as though they don’t have a voice.

At the Vicksburg Daily News, you have a voice and we hear you loud and clear.

The Vicksburg Daily News invites all educators and school district employees to send any information they may have on this issue or any topic of concern to:

info@vicksburgnews.com

We strongly advise you to send this via email accounts not related to the school district. For the Vicksburg Daily News to use your information we will have to verify the veracity of your information. We will protect your identity at all costs up to and including going to jail if necessary. We work for you and the citizens of Vicksburg and Warren County and look forward to hearing from you.

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Just as this story went to press the Vicksburg Daily News received a copy of the email Shealy sent to the summer school teachers. The above story was edited to reflect this information.