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Jackson Public School District adjusts plan to consolidate or close several schools

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The Jackson Public School District unveiled its adjusted school consolidation plan Tuesday night, adding one elementary school and removing four from its initial list released earlier this fall. 

In October, JPS district leadership introduced a plan to close 16 school buildings because of declining enrollment in the district. The district has lost around 9,500 students between the 2015-16 and 2023-24 school years, about a third of its population. The district has also previously consolidated schools.

The following school buildings are on the updated closure or consolidation list:

  • Dawson Elementary School
  • G. N. Smith Elementary School
  • Lake Elementary School
  • Lester Elementary School
  • Marshall Elementary School
  • Obama IB Elementary (delayed to 2025)
  • Raines Elementary School
  • Shirley Elementary School
  • Sykes Elementary School
  • Wells APAC Elementary (delayed to 2025)
  • Chastain Middle School
  • Whitten Middle School
  • Wingfield High School

Clausell Elementary School, Green Elementary School, and Key Elementary School were removed from the list after feedback from the community about enrollment from local neighborhoods and programming at the schools, according to Superintendent Errick Greene.

“We got feedback on many of these schools, if not all of the schools, most of them,” Greene said.

READ MORE: After series of community meetings, JPS parents still seek more information on proposed school closures

Oak Forest Elementary School was also removed from the list and replaced with Marshall Elementary School. The district did not respond to a request for comment on this move by press time.

Greene said the consolidation of Obama and Wells Elementary schools with the middle schools they feed to (Northwest IB and Bailey APAC respectively) will be delayed one year to allow for renovations at Bailey APAC Middle School to be completed.

Greene elaborated on plans for closed school buildings, identifying three categories buildings will be sorted in: sale/lease, redevelopment, or demolition. He outlined plans for the creation of a Facilities Repurposing Advisory Committee which would make recommendations to the board for each building. A consultant would run the advisory committee and apply for private and public funding to aid in redevelopment efforts.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson has also offered to help the district identify federal funds that could be used to help repurpose closed buildings.

Board President Ed Sivak expressed concern that the repurposing efforts will be sidelined after the board votes on the proposal later this month and said he wants specific goals and plans for the advisory committee.

“I’ve heard that this will take a long time,” he said. “I’ve heard numbers as long as a decade, that it will take a decade to redevelop this number of properties. We can’t use that as an excuse to not act with urgency.”

When asked about possibly laying off teachers, Greene said the district does not expect many, if any, teachers or school support staff to be laid off because of the amount of turnover the district sees each year and the number of teachers on emergency licenses. Greene said layoffs are more possible for principals or assistant principals. He also restated that the district is planning to reduce the size of its central office in proportion with the consolidation efforts.

Cynthia Thompson, the board member for Ward 6, also brought up renaming high schools in south Jackson to give students a new common identity, something Greene said the district is exploring but did not have concrete recommendations for at this time.

“The whole time my children were matriculating through JPS schools, south Jackson, Wingfield in particular, was not being represented (on the school board),” Thompson said. “I just want to publicly say that and let it be on the record that I know it, I recognize it, I see it, and I have felt it before I ever sat in this seat. I just hate that we have gotten to this place where it’s almost too late to do anything with it except what we need to do. And if we are going to do that, the only way I can see of right-sizing it to make it be fair is for the entire south Jackson to come together.” 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

An ad supporting Jenifer Branning finds imaginary liberals on the Mississippi Supreme Court

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mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-11-24 06:00:00

The Improve Mississippi PAC claims in advertising that the state Supreme Court “is in danger of being dominated by liberal justices” unless Jenifer Branning is elected in Tuesday’s runoff.

Improve Mississippi made the almost laughable claim in both radio commercials and mailers that were sent to homes in the court’s central district, where a runoff election will be held on Tuesday.

Improve Mississippi is an independent, third party political action committee created to aid state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County in her efforts to defeat longtime Central District Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens of Copiah County.

The PAC should receive an award or at least be considered for an honor for best fiction writing.

At least seven current members of the nine-member Supreme Court would be shocked to know anyone considered them liberal.

It is telling that the ads do not offer any examples of “liberal” Supreme Court opinions issued by the current majority. It is even more telling that there have been no ads by Improve Mississippi or any other group citing the liberal dissenting opinions written or joined by Kitchens.

Granted, it is fair and likely accurate to point out that Branning is more conservative than Kitchens. After all, Branning is considered one of the more conservative members of a supermajority Republican Mississippi Senate.

As a member of the Senate, for example, she voted against removing the Confederate battle emblem from the Mississippi state flag, opposed Medicaid expansion and an equal pay bill for women.

And if she is elected to the state Supreme Court in Tuesday’s runoff election, she might be one of the panel’s more conservative members. But she will be surrounded by a Supreme Court bench full of conservatives.

A look at the history of the members of the Supreme Court might be helpful.

Chief Justice Michael Randolph originally was appointed to the court by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who is credited with leading the effort to make the Republican Party dominant in Mississippi. Before Randolph was appointed by Barbour, he served a stint on the National Coal Council — appointed to the post by President Ronald Reagan who is considered an icon in the conservative movement.

Justices James Maxwell, Dawn Beam, David Ishee and Kenneth Griffis were appointed by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant.

Only three members of the current court were not initially appointed to the Supreme Court by conservative Republican governors: Kitchens, Josiah Coleman and Robert Chamberlin. All three got their initial posts on the court by winning elections for full eight-year terms.

But Chamberlin, once a Republican state senator from Southaven, was appointed as a circuit court judge by Barbour before winning his Supreme Court post. And Coleman was endorsed in his election effort by both the Republican Party and by current Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who also contributed to his campaign.

Only Kitchens earned a spot on the court without either being appointed by a Republican governor or being endorsed by the state Republican Party.

The ninth member of the court is Leslie King, who, like Kitchens, is viewed as not as conservative as the other seven justices. King, former chief judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, was originally appointed to the Supreme Court by Barbour, who to his credit made the appointment at least in part to ensure that a Black Mississippian remained on the nine-member court.

It should be noted that Beam was defeated on Nov. 5 by David Sullivan, a Gulf Coast municipal judge who has a local reputation for leaning conservative. Even if Sullivan is less conservative when he takes his new post in January, there still be six justices on the Supreme Court with strong conservative bonafides, not counting what happens in the Branning-Kitchens runoff.

Granted, Kitchens is next in line to serve as chief justice should Randolph, who has been on the court since 2004, step down. The longest tenured justice serves as the chief justice.

But to think that Kitchens as chief justice would be able to exert enough influence to force the other longtime conservative members of the court to start voting as liberals is even more fiction.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1968

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-24 07:00:00

Nov. 24, 1968

Credit: Wikipedia

Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver fled the U.S. to avoid imprisonment on a parole violation. He wrote in “Soul on Ice”: “If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.” 

The Arkansas native began to be incarcerated when he was still in junior high and soon read about Malcolm X. He began writing his own essays, drawing the praise of Norman Mailer and others. That work helped him win parole in 1966. His “Soul on Ice” memoir, written from Folsom state prison, described his journey from selling marijuana to following Malcolm X. The book he wrote became a seminal work in Black literature, and he became a national figure. 

Cleaver soon joined the Black Panther Party, serving as the minister of information. After a Panther shootout with police that left him injured, one Panther dead and two officers wounded, he jumped bail and fled the U.S. In 1977, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, he returned to the U.S. pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and served 1,200 hours of community service. 

From that point forward, “Mr. Cleaver metamorphosed into variously a born-again Christian, a follower of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a Mormon, a crack cocaine addict, a designer of men’s trousers featuring a codpiece and even, finally, a Republican,” The New York Times wrote in his 1998 obituary. His wife said he was suffering from mental illness and never recovered.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1867

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-23 07:00:00

Nov. 23, 1867

Extract from the Reconstructed Constitution of the State of Louisiana, 1868. Credit: Library of Congress

The Louisiana Constitutional Convention, composed of 49 White delegates and 49 Black delegates, met in New Orleans. The new constitution became the first in the state’s history to include a bill of rights. 

The document gave property rights to married women, funded public education without segregated schools, provided full citizenship for Black Americans, and eliminated the Black Codes of 1865 and property qualifications for officeholders. 

The voters ratified the constitution months later. Despite the document, prejudice and corruption continued to reign in Louisiana, and when Reconstruction ended, the constitution was replaced with one that helped restore the rule of white supremacy.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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