Despite the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners’ decision to fund nine teaching assistant jobs on Aug. 16, the assistants returned to school happy to have a job but wishing the situation were different.

Vickie Wilkinson, a teaching assistant formerly at Chocowinity Primary School but relocated to Chocowinity Middle, is one of those.

In past interviews, she repeatedly expressed her love for the classroom and her desire to remain a part of it.

When the Board of Education eliminated 16 teaching positions, and thus nine individuals’ jobs after the board elected to move seven assistants to different schools and leave the other positions unfilled, Wilkinson’s job was one of the ones cut. After receiving funding from the commissioners, however, she was able to return to work but had to move to an older group of students at the middle school, she said.

In an email, Wilkinson’s husband Scott wrote, “People have been coming up to me (and Vickie) ever since the county stepped in with funds, saying, ‘I am so glad Vickie was able to keep her job.’ Actually that is not exactly the whole picture. Vickie was let go from the teaching assistant position that she had last year at Chocowinity Primary with a kindergarten class. She was the last hired, so first fired. The good news is that she was offered another job, though it is with a very different age level.”

“She is giving it her best, but her heart is with younger kids.”

Alicia Vosburgh, principal at Chocowinity Primary, said in an email that even though the county agreed to fund those nine jobs, the school still has two less assistants this year because of Wilkinson’s relocation and the decision to leave another position unfilled.

Vosburgh said she was forced to redo scheduling for this year to accommodate the changes.

“This created a lot of last-minute work and redo of work that had been done earlier in the summer,” she said in the email. “I did have to move personnel around. … We need (teaching assistants) in the classroom to work with students. The public needs to understand they are an extension of the teacher and can provide additional academic, social and emotional support for our students.”

Roxanne Beeman, a first-grade teacher at Eastern Elementary School, said her teaching team of four classrooms lost an assistant, so the four rooms now share three assistants.

She said it can be difficult to give a student a one-on-one assessment mandated by the state when she has more than 10 other children, who are too young to learn independently, needing her attention.

“It’s difficult with the age children we have,” Beeman said. “The teaching assistants are feeling guilty I think. … We’re going to have to work it out.”

The teachers at Eastern are still working on how to cope without an assistant in the classrooms at all times, she said.

“The teaching assistants play such a critical role,” Beeman said. “These teaching assistants work with the teachers; they instruct the students.”

The problems with funding for the assistants stemmed from the North Carolina General Assembly’s failure to decide on a budget for this fiscal year. The House’s budget proposed that funding be maintained at the same amount as the last fiscal year, but the Senate’s proposal slashed funding in half to funnel that money toward hiring more teachers.

Legislators in the Senate have referenced research studies, which show the best learning environment involves a ratio of 15 students to one teacher, prompting them to develop the plan to hire more teachers.

According to county manager Brian Alligood, the Board of Commissioners will not have to pay the funds for the nine teaching assistant jobs if funding ends up coming from the state, but until a state budget is decided, the school system must wait to decide on its next move.

The Board of Education is also waiting on the state for driver’s education funds, and Vosburgh said her school has not received some of its ordered supplies as a result of the budget standstill.

The legislature has extended the deadline three times since the original one for the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1, and the current deadline is set to expire on Sept. 18.