JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Appointed to examine how to consolidate three school districts in Chickasaw County, a nine-member commission reported back that they’d rather not.
“It would appear there are few, if any, individuals in Chickasaw County in favor of the consolidation of the school districts,” a report submitted to the Legislature states.
Lawmakers were on track to order the consolidation of the Chickasaw County, Houston and Okolona school districts in 2016 before state Rep. Preston Sullivan, D-Okolona, won a last-minute reprieve, amending the bill to only call for a study commission. But after three stormy meetings of the commission, members were unable to come to any agreements on what to do. Instead, opponents dug in. Okolona Superintendent Dexter Green, in a Nov. 8 letter, declaring it would ask the U.S. Justice department to block any merger based on the desegregation order that Okolona operates under.
Houston Superintendent Tony Cook declined to comment, while Green and Chickasaw County Superintendent Betsy Collums did not respond.
It’s unclear if Okolona’s plea to the Justice Department will have any effect. Federal officials have approved previous consolidations involving district under desegregation orders, although it required some changes in how Starkville and Oktibbeha County merged.
Senate Education Committee Chairman Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, though, said he expects to take up a bill to merge the Chickasaw districts in 2017. Tollison said he expects to consider other mergers as well, although he said he was shelving efforts for now to merge districts across county lines.
He and others, particularly Republicans, say many districts with 1,000 or fewer students spend too much money on administration, and combining such districts will reduce the number of superintendents and other high-paid administrators on the payroll.
In the last five years, lawmakers have voted to abolish two school districts and merge 17 others. Some of those actions have yet to take effect. When they will, it will cut the number of school districts by 12 overall. So far, four high schools have closed following mergers or abolitions - Drew, East Oktibbeha, West Oktibbeha and Hinds Agricultural.
The Chickasaw commission was stormy, with sharp disagreements over how the school board should be elected.
“The second meeting was a mess. They jumped up and got to threatening to whip each other,” state Deputy Superintendent for Special Projects Mike Kent told a state Board of Education committee in November.
The commission couldn’t agree on where to locate a central office for the district, or how many people should work in that central administration. Another issue in the consolidation is that a sliver of Monroe County is part of the current Okolona district, sending 100 of the district’s 690 students. After debate, the commission agreed to keep those students and let residents of that area vote in district elections.
“While all three districts acknowledged the challenges they face, they also assert that they are currently experiencing various degrees of success and they are convinced that their future progress will be threatened or diminished if they lose local control over their schools,” states the commission report, written by Kent. “Basically, there is a lack of trust and these commissioners do not want to be held responsible for the demise of their school districts.”
But Sullivan, whose delay was one of the few Democratic legislative successes of 2016, said he’s unlikely to be able to forestall the move for another year.
“I wish it would all go away, but it’s not going to go away,” Sullivan said.
___
Follow Jeff Amy at: https://twitter.com/jeffamy . Read his work at https://www.apnews.com/search/JeffAmy .
Please read our comment policy before commenting.