More than 800 Dare County Schools employees are left in limbo until June 30 when the fiscal year ends and the North Carolina General Assembly should decide the fate of education.

“I don’t have a permanent job now,” substitute teacher Alex Pattee said. “(The budget cuts) may force me to move home, back to Indiana. I have to wait and see if something’s open, but I’ve had to explore a lot of options.”

The Senate passed a proposed budget onto the House of Representatives in April. Typically harsher than the House on education, the Senate’s version of the proposed budget calls for cuts in education to save up to $320 million by eliminating teaching positions and increasing class sizes by two students per class. Despite opposition from Governor Beverly Perdue and the North Carolina Association of Educators to the Senate cuts, the House answered with what the NCAE dubbed a “bloodbath” for education.

NCAE President Sheri Strickland said the proposed House budget “offered dangerous and draconian cuts to public schools across North Carolina.”

The proposed House budget calls for major cuts in all areas including the elimination of about 12,000 jobs in public education, a five percent reduction to non-instructional support like custodians and office workers, a 10 percent reduction to alternative schools, and a proposal to reduce the school year by five days for next year and an additional five days for the 2010-2011 year resulting in a reduction of teacher pay. Other items on the chopping block include new textbooks, staff development, Learn and Earn Online, and literacy coaches.

Eliminating 6,005 classroom teaching positions will increase class sizes by two pupils per class. Some students believe this will be detrimental to their learning experience.

“I think in classes like Pre-Cal or AP U.S. History, a big class is a bad thing because people get off topic really easily,” junior Susan Youngsteadt said. “Something little like Contemporary Issues wouldn’t be as big of a problem.”

The state’s economic woes have already taken over $700,000 back from Dare County Schools’ 2008-2009 budget, and current projections include the loss of over $1 million for 2009-2010, according to the minutes from the Superintendent’s Advisory Council meeting on May 20.

Dare County Superintendent Sue Burgess issued a statement delineating her concerns about the budget as something she found “shocking.”

“A serious concern I have about the Senate and the House budget is the proposal to add two students to all classes in grades K through twelve. This means the state funding for teachers and teacher assistants will decrease,” she said.

Burgess continued on to analyze the potential losses, citing the cut of the More at Four Program for preschoolers students will “seriously undermine the progress we have made in getting at-risk students on grade level in reading and math by the end of the third grade.”

The state Board of Education Chairman and CEO Bill Harrison and State Superintendent June Atkinson also issued a statement concerning the proposed budget on the N.C. Department of Public Instruction’s official Web site, highlighting hopes that it will be merely a draft will much discussion ahead of it.