All summer, Christopher Best II eagerly awaited his first day of kindergarten. But instead of joining his classmates at school in August, he stayed at home. 

Five-year-old Christopher depends on a mobile ventilator and a tracheostomy tube to breathe. His doctor recommends that a one-on-one nurse attend school with him to manage his care and respond in case of an emergency.

But two months into the school year, Madison County Schools has not hired a dedicated nurse to care for Christopher, a scenario disability rights advocates say is not uncommon for children with complex medical conditions. 

Emily Catazaro, Christopher’s mother, is frustrated by the delays that have inhibited her son from attending school. 

“He cries every day because he can’t go to school,” said Catazaro, who moved her family from Copiah County based on recommendations from Christopher’s doctors about the special education services in Madison County schools. 

A week before the school year began, district officials informed Catazaro they had assigned an interim nurse to care for Christopher at school. Concerned that the nurse did not have adequate tracheostomy experience, including practice completing an emergency tracheostomy tube change on Christopher, Catazaro, a registered nurse herself, requested that the nurse receive further training. 

But by the time school officials met with Catazaro and agreed to allow her to provide additional training to the nurse on Aug. 13, two weeks later, district staff said they would have to re-offer the position to the interim nurse. 

Since then, neither an interim nor permanent nurse has been assigned to Christopher. Without a nurse to care for him at school, Christopher receives a total of five hours of instruction at home each week. 

On Sept. 30, the district told Catazaro in a meeting it will contract with a private nursing company to provide one-on-one nursing care for Christopher at school. 

A school staff member contacted Catazaro to schedule the meeting Sep. 20, eight days after Mississippi Today reached out to Madison County Schools about Christopher’s case. 

Madison County Schools declined to answer questions about Christopher’s case. The district also declined to respond to inquiries about its special education, one-on-one nursing and homebound instruction policy and staffing, saying those responses could be construed to violate student privacy. 

“The teachers, staff, and administrators of Madison County Schools are committed to ensuring they meet the unique and individualized needs of all their students. The District is committed to following all state and federal laws, regulations, and policies with respect to providing services to its students,” district communications director Gene Graham told Mississippi Today in an email.  

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, first passed in 1975, children with disabilities are entitled to receive a “free appropriate public education” in the least restrictive setting possible. The federal law marked a growing effort to include all children in schools by providing support services to children with disabilities instead of educating them in self-contained classrooms. 

School districts are required by law to provide a full-time nurse to students if their health condition necessitates it, said Lily Moens, Christopher’s attorney and a law fellow at the Mississippi Center for Justice who focuses on special education advocacy. 

Moens spoke to Mississippi Today about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and special education challenges in Mississippi, but did not answer questions about Christopher’s case. 

“There is an obligation for the school to provide an education that is in the least restrictive environment,” she said.

Given Christopher’s dependence on a ventilator, it is “recommended and preferred” that a specially trained, one-on-one nurse care for him during the school day, Christopher’s doctor wrote in a letter provided to the school district.  

Christopher faces severe health risks in the classroom, including low levels of oxygen, which can be difficult to detect without a trained eye, or equipment failure. Because Christopher is non-verbal and predominantly conveys ideas with sign language, it is crucial for him to have a dedicated nurse who can communicate with him and understands his complex health needs, said Catazaro. 

“Christopher is a bright and capable student who deserves the experience of learning in a classroom setting among his peers,” said Christopher’s doctor in the letter. 

Staffing challenges

Staffing shortages can challenge the ideals of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, said Diana Autin, the executive director of National PLACE, a nonprofit membership organization that advocates for families.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of teachers, speech and occupational therapists and nurses have caused difficulties for school districts aiming to provide adequate special education services to students, she said. 

Registered nurse vacancies at Mississippi hospitals reached their highest numbers in over a decade last year. 

Madison County Schools officials assured Catazaro in a meeting on July 25 that the district would provide a one-on-one nurse for Christopher. 

But there is no enforceable timeline for employing such staff if the school district is not able to hire for the position, said Moens. 

Catazaro herself interviewed for the job and received a rejection letter dated Aug. 21. 

“It is very difficult to get any kind of one-on-one assistance in our state,” said Pam Dollar, the executive director of the Mississippi Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities and Christopher’s advocate through the Mississippi Parent Training and Information Center. “… If the support that a child needs is too costly, the school district is going to push back.” 

The Mississippi Parent Training and Information Center, a program of the Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities, educates parents of children with disabilities about their educational rights and supports them as they navigate the process of developing an individualized education plan with school districts. 

“Especially in regions of the state that are much more underfunded in terms of their local school systems, (staffing) presents a big challenge,” Moens said. 

Madison County School District has the fifth highest revenue of all school districts in the state. It received $189 million from local, state and federal sources during the 2022-2023 school year.

‘He’s getting left behind’

In late April, Christopher began attending Madison County’s public preschool with a one-on-one nurse hired by the school district and trained by Catazaro. 

But as the school year came to a close, Catazaro said she learned that Christopher’s one-on-one nurse would not continue working with him during Extended School Year, a program public schools are required to provide to qualifying students with disabilities. 

She was told a nurse would check on Christopher at 15-minute intervals, despite his doctor’s recommendation that he have a full-time nurse. 

“The nurse will be in Christopher’s ESY classroom to assess him every 15 minutes,” wrote Vicki Doty, the director of special education for Madison County Schools, in an email to Catazaro on June 3, the first day of extended year programming. 

Given his complex health needs, check-ins only every 15 minutes could have dire consequences for Christopher, said Catazaro. 

She opted to remove Christopher from extended school year programming until a one-on-one nurse could be hired, and requested a mediation with the school district to resolve the disagreement. 

Madison County later offered Christopher one additional hour of instruction each week at home to make up for lost extended school year classroom time. 

In mediation, the school requested a medical review from a medical doctor rather than Christopher’s usual nurse practitioner, said Catazaro. After reviewing Christopher’s doctor’s recommendation that he be assigned a one-on-one nurse, the county told Catazaro they would secure a nurse for Christopher while at school.

But two months later, the school still has not provided a nurse.

“What about no child left behind? He’s getting left behind,” Catazaro said.

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

“So, how far do you go back with the Sanderson Farms Championship?” a friend asked the other day.

The answer was easy: All the way back.

Back to 1968, when it was known as the Magnolia State Classic and was played at the Hattiesburg Country Club. That’s where I was making lots of bogeys for my high school golf team as a 15-year-old 10th grader.

I caddied in the first round of the first Magnolia State Classic. My pro shot 83 that day, knocking the bark off of several pine trees and cussing his way around the beautiful, old course. Red-faced and still cussing, he slammed his clubs into his car trunk afterward, and I never saw him again. He would have had to shoot 57 in the second round to make the cut, and, trust me, that wasn’t happening. I showed up for the second round, and he did not. Never paid me for the first round either.

I watched PGA rookie Mac McClendon, a 22-year-old fresh out of LSU, win the first Magnolia, beating 52-year-old Pete Fleming in a nine-hole playoff after they had already played 36 holes that day. As McClendon sank the winning putt at dusk, cars were already streaming out of the parking lot, all with their lights on.

This week will mark the 57th playing of what has become the Sanderson Farms Championship. I’ve seen and covered the large majority of the previous 56, except for about 10 years when I assigned myself to go cover another little tournament, the one they call The Masters.

Matter of fact, I have covered Mississippi’s only PGA Tour tournament under all eight of its different names. Here’s the list: The Magnolia State Classic, the Magnolia Classic, the Deposit Guaranty Classic, the Southern Farm Bureau Classic, the Viking Classic, the True South Classic, and, of course, the Sanderson Farms Championship, which it has been since Joe Sanderson saved the tournament in 2013.

I covered it in Hattiesburg, at Annandale in Madison and at the Country Club of Jackson. I covered it in April, in May, in July, in September, October and November. I’ve covered it brutal heat and, much more often, in monsoon-ish weather fit only for frogs, fish and ducks. At least twice, I have gone to cover the tournament for the sports department and wound up covering a flood for the news department. Once, at Annandale, we in the media center narrowly escaped an evil tornado.

From its humble beginnings — the total purse in 1968 was $20,000 — the tournament has grown into an $8.2 million, full-fledged PGA TOUR event. That’s right: Several caddies will make more cash this week than McClendon made in ’68. 

Truth is, I have covered some of golf’s greatest players before they became household names. I covered Johnny Miller when he was, as they say, a can’t-miss prospect straight out of BYU. I covered Tom Watson when he was fresh out of Stanford and sported a mustache. Somebody back then told me back then I had to see Watson’s rhythmic golf swing, and so I went to see it. I found him on the fifth hole, the most difficult at the grand, old Hattiesburg Country Club course. I was standing behind the green, looking down the fairway, when a golf ball, hit from the left rough, took two big bounces, rolled about 10 feet and dropped into the cup. There was no roar from the gallery. Hell, I was the gallery. Watson came bouncing up to the green looking all over for his ball.

“Check the hole,” I told him.

He did and then he flashed that gap-toothed smile that would become famous worldwide.

Watson didn’t win in Mississippi and neither did Miller, but Payne Stewart surely did. That was before he wore knickers. I saw future Mississippian Jim Gallagher Jr. win it long before he married Cissye and became a Ryder Cup hero. I saw the late, great Chi Chi Rodriguez play in it and thoroughly entertain all who watched him.

I walked the fairways with John Daly, back when he was a skinny, chain-smoking rookie just back in the states from having honed his game on the South African Tour.

I covered Pro Ams that included the likes of Dizzy Dean, Clint Eastwood, Glen Campbell, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Joe Namath and so many more. Dizzy Dean beat his pro in the 1970 pro-am, taking only 73 shots, nearly all of which started far to his left and moved far to his right.

”How come you slice the ball so much?” someone in the gallery hollered at Ol’ Diz.

Dean answered laughing, “Podnuh, if you had to swing around a belly as big as mine, you’d slice it, too.”

He had a point.

In 1980, Roger Maltbie, a helluva player and later a famous golf broadcaster, shot a first round 65, then sat through three days of torrential rains that flooded Hattiesburg. He sat through most of the storms in EJ’s, a bar at the Ramada Inn on Highway 49. That’s where I found him after he was declared the winner on a rain-soaked Sunday.

“How much do I get?” Maltbie asked.

“Five thousand,” I answered.

“Hell,” Maltbie said, “that’ll barely pay my bar tab.”

It has been widely reported — accurately, I am afraid — that this could well be the last Sanderson Farms Championship, which for so long has been Mississippi’s only PGA Tour tournament. That’s a shame on many fronts, but mostly because the tournament has donated nearly $25 million to Mississippi charities, most for Children‘s of Mississippi, which provides medical care for nearly 200,000 children a year. If it goes out, it should go out with a bang. The weather forecast is perfect. The field is excellent with such established stars as Matt Kutcher and Rickie Fowler headed this way.

Here’s hoping a new sponsor appears out of nowhere — as Joe Sanderson did — and saves the event. If not, please allow me to say publicly about a tournament I have come to appreciate like an old friend: Thanks for the memories.

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

The lack of accessible child care in Mississippi is keeping 7% of the state’s labor force out of work and costing the state billions of dollars.

If those 7% of people constrained from full-time employment because of child care needs rejoined the labor force, it would add about $8 billion to Mississippi’s gross domestic product per year, according to a new report from the Mississippi Early Learning Alliance, which advocates to improve early childhood education in the state.

“Mississippi’s elected leaders have done great work bringing in new corporations offering high-paying jobs,” said Biz Harris, executive director of MELA. “Now we need to ensure that Mississippi parents have access to stable and reliable child care for infants and toddlers, and all children during traditional and nontraditional work hours so that Mississippi can fill those jobs.”

MELA’s recently released report explores how the lack of child care access is weakening Mississippi’s labor force. The report also highlights the financial problems within Mississippi’s child care industry.

Child care costs about $100 to $200 per week on average, depending on the location, the child’s age and other factors. Even if there are slots available in child care facilities, they may not have the right hours, price or services for every family.

Economists consider the child care industry a “broken market,” meaning it hasn’t been able to balance its supply and demand by itself. There is high demand and high prices for child care, but limited supply. 

On top of that, many child care workers are leaving the field due to low wages and difficult conditions. Their median annual wage is $22,620, which is below the federal poverty level for a family of three or more. This despite a 2023 survey finding that about 70% of Mississippi’s child care workers work 40 hours a week or more. 

There is state and federal support for child care in Mississippi. The state is part of two federal block grant programs and one food reimbursement program. There’s a 50% income tax credit for employers who provide child care during work hours. 

There’s also 37 state-funded, early learning collaboratives composed of school districts, Head Start agencies, child care centers, and private, non-profit organizations that are funded and overseen by the state Department of Education. However, they only reach about a quarter of Mississippi’s 4-year-olds, and do not provide child care to infants and toddlers.

And according to MELA’s report, Mississippi still spends less per child on early childhood education than any other Southern state. Mississippi spends $601 per child. By comparison, Arkansas spends $3,009 per child. 

Public and private entities are working to help children and their parents. 

Last year, the Mississippi Department of Human Services contracted with child care platform Wonderschool for $8.3 million. Wonderschool is a platform that assists child care providers in setting up at-home programs for a percentage of their earnings. 

The program assisted new child care providers with starting their programs and established the first statewide pool of substitute child care teachers. MDHS provided start-up grants of $10,000 for in-home facilities or $25,000 for centers and gave reimbursements. The Mississippi Department of Health streamlined the process for establishing a child care business.

“The heart is there to work in child care, but you’ve got to be able to economically make it, you know, and that’s something that, in collaboration with the department, you know we’ve been seeking to do in different ways,” said Jason Moss, CEO of Wonderschool, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2016. 

So far in Mississippi, the program has helped establish 95 child care programs and counting, adding 3,274 child care slots. Mississippi’s substitute teacher pool has 249 substitutes and counting.

Providers say the program helped them with marketing, funding, logistics and more. They used Wonderschool’s platform and self-serve modules and could work one-on-one with business coaches. 

Providers like Melissa Riddle, director of IPL Christian Academy in Byhalia, received support at every step. “I was told before starting this journey that it will not be easy, but [with] Wonderschool I have a tremendous amount of gratitude for all the help that I am provided,” she said. 

Janice Spann of JJ’s Afterschool Nursery in Raymond learned how to advertise and run her business, as well as receive funding and one-on-one coaching. So far, the only children in her daycare are her two grandchildren. 

Spann wants lawmakers to know that child care is a necessity. “It is a necessary foundation for our children and for their future success, which will ultimately affect us all,” she said, “Not to mention the absolute need for working parents to have a safe haven for their children, as they learn and grow.”

MDHS’ chief communications officer Mark Jones said “If we fail to invest in child care, we’re not only letting down today’s workforce, but also letting down the workforce of tomorrow.”

Much of the funding for this collaboration came from COVID-19 relief funds and the Child Care Development Fund, a federal fund to help low-income families get child care. 

While MDHS and Wonderschool are helping providers, the Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative has a program for parents. MLICCI, like MELA, is  working with the state Senate’s Labor Force Participation Study Group and Study Group on Women, Children, and Families. 

MLICCI is a nonprofit organization working to make child care more accessible to single mothers in Mississippi. MLICCI’s Employment Equity for Single Moms program offers job training, education, child care and more so that low-income single mothers can find higher-paying jobs.

The program provides training and coaching for single mothers. It provides child care by either signing up moms for the state’s child care assistance program or with its own private funds. MLICCI also covers transportation.

Carol Burnett, executive director of MLICCI, said that women often get steered into low-paying jobs and an “overwhelmingly large number of workers in those jobs are women.” 

“Those jobs where most of the workers are women pay less than the occupations where most of the workers are men. And so one of the solutions is to try to make sure that those higher-paying occupations are among the options presented to moms.”

Over 2,700 mothers across the state have benefited from the program, Burnett said. About 35% of participants got into a higher-paying job, and over 20% got into training and education. 

One of them is BreAnna Wilson, mother of two who joined the program after learning about it from her boss. She moved to Mississippi after her divorce and was struggling financially.

“It’s been very helpful on my end because some of the jobs, when I started off with my jobs, I really wasn’t getting that much pay, and so once I did get my check it was enough to pay a bill and maybe to get my daughter some diapers or get a few things,” she said. 

Now, she can save and continue working towards her goal of being a marriage and family therapist.

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