A bill that would make it easier for K-12 students to transfer to other public schools outside their home districts, one of the last “school choice” measures to remain alive this session, died in the House this week.

That came after Senate leaders said House legislation easing public-to-public transfers, or “portability,” did not have the votes to pass that chamber.

The House initially responded to the Senate with a list ditch attempt to keep the measure alive by inserting language from the legislation into an unrelated bill. But Rep. Jansen Owen, the bill’s sponsor, said he knew the move would be challenged with a parliamentary point of order. Owen said opposition to portability, which he called the most basic of school choice measures, was rooted in outdated arguments.

“The opposition, they were citing things like the change in school culture and property values, which sounds a lot like the 1960s segregationist movement,” Owen said. “The only thing we were doing here was telling the school district they can’t tell me ‘no’ when I want to send my kid to another public school district. But that’s too much for Nancy Loome.”

Nancy Loome, director of the public education advocacy group, The Parents Campaign, said the measure would have harmed public school students because transportation was not provided. Few children would have real “choice,” and many would be left in schools with further reduced resources, Loome argued.

Republican House Speaker Jason White has been angered by the Senate killing most of the House’s education agenda this session, and has criticized fellow Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate.

“No need to send a milquetoast, very lame Senate Education agenda back to the House, it’s not even worthy of discussion,” White said in a social media post responding to a Magnolia Tribune report. “… We showed the Senate what Mississippi’s education future looks like with the House bills, and they wholeheartedly rejected them without so much as a whisper. Mississippians are beginning to take notice of the Lt. Governor and his Senate leaders doing the bidding of the status quo.”

Bills remain alive this session that would increase tax credits available to private schools through the Children’s Promise Act.

White vowed to try other measures again next year.

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

Mississippi women who work in government don’t get a single day of paid time off after giving birth or adopting a child. That’s about to change. 

A bill that cleared the Legislature Friday will give six weeks of paid family leave to primary caregivers who are state employees. It now heads to the governor to be signed into law.

“This is a great day for Mississippi,” said Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, author of the bill. “We’re placing the value on mothers and children in a post-Roe vs. Wade society. And it’s time we put our money where our mouths are.” 

House Bill 1063 will apply to state employees who adopt or give birth to a child and are the primary caregiver for that child. It applies to employees working for state government agencies but does not include public school teachers. 

The bill passed the House unanimously with a vote of 118-0. 

The original version of the House bill included eight weeks of paid leave for primary caregivers and two weeks of paid leave for secondary caregivers before it was amended by the Senate.

Felsher said he would consider expanding paid leave provisions in the future after seeing how effective it is. 

“I’ve been strong for pro-life and for mothers and children, and also fathers, so I’m all about the family. And so if this is something we can continue discussions on in the future and it’s successful, I would gladly lead the charge on that.”

The policy has garnered wide support from leadership in both chambers. Speaker of the House Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have championed it. Attorney General Lynn Fitch has also publicly spoken out in support of it. 

Proponents say it acts as a recruitment and retention tool for the public sector, which tends to pay less than the private sector. 

“We have trouble retaining workers because our pay sometimes is not as competitive as the private sector, so this is just one more tool to allow us to retain folks,” said Felsher. 

Sen. Jeremy England, R-Vancleave, authored a similar bill which has also had overwhelming support this year. For him, the issue was personal – and simple. 

“The exhaustion of having a new baby at home, and the joy of doing that – it’s something that you’ll never get back,” England said. “And so for that reason, as a father, it was very important for me to do that.”

England said he was surprised to learn that this policy didn’t already exist.

“We’ve had state employees that have children, and we celebrate with them, and I just had no idea they weren’t getting that time,” he said. 

Mississippi will now join 36 other states in offering dedicated paid family leave for state employees, according to A Better Balance, a national nonprofit advocating for better work-life balance. 

“The cost of living, the turmoil in the world … you look around and I imagine you do think ‘Wow, is it a great time to be a parent?’ And this should not be one thing that you have to think about, in my opinion,” Felsher said. “If you want to be a parent, we as a state need to be here in that role as an employer and say: ‘We’ll stand behind you being a parent and having a healthy child.’”

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

In a shopping center known as the Northwest Junction sits a KFC, a wings restaurant, Rose’s, a discount shopping store, and a medical cannabis dispensary. What’s noticeably missing? A grocery store.

The Junction used to be home to Food Depot, but in 2023, the store shuttered its doors, leaving this part of Northwest Jackson in a food swamp – that is, an area that’s lacking fresh produce and vegetables but has a plethora of fast food restaurants and gas station dives. 

When Senator John Horhn campaigned outside of Food Depot during his third mayoral bid in 2017, he touted it as one of his achievements for the city. Horhn, a candidate in the upcoming mayoral race, had a major hand in getting the Food Depot on Northside Drive as well as a McDade’s in Westland Plaza.

“Back in 2005, Jackson experienced the closure of 13 Winn-Dixies, and overnight, [it] created a bunch of food deserts in our city,” said Horhn. “Working with a colleague, I was able to recruit two grocery stores back into areas that were deserts.”

But Food Depot on Northside fell victim to theft and problems with security, Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes told WAPT in 2023. In May of that year, the grocery store closed. 

”Folks are very disappointed because in that part of the city of Northwest Jackson, there is a lack of opportunity for fresh fruits and vegetables and food that’s healthy for you,” Horhn told Mississippi Today. “People want the convenience of having food that they can purchase and consume nearby to where they live.”

Now, as he embarks on his fourth mayoral campaign, he said it’s important to get grocery stores back into communities around Jackson. He points to programs such as Hope Enterprise Corporation’s Mid South Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which offers financing for grocery stores in food deserts, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture as potential partners in bringing fresh food to families.

“We’ve been able to attract grocery stores in the past. I think we can do it again,” he said. “I believe that there are incentives that are available. I think that we need to be aggressive about our attempts to get those resources so that we can subsidize it.”

But not all grocery stores are alike. Even when there are grocery stores within walking distance, residents find themselves heading to other neighborhoods to find better quality goods.

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Sheila O’Flaherty lives in the Jayne Avenue neighborhood in West Jackson, about a mile away from the Grocery Depot. She prefers to go to Kroger on Interstate 55 or the Save-A-Lot by the Jackson Medical Mall. Like one-in-five households in her area, O’Flaherty doesn’t own a car. To buy groceries, she’ll have to take a total of four buses per trip, turning what should be a quick trip to the store into an hours-long trek on public transportation. 

“I don’t think the groceries that we have access to here in Westland Plaza, specifically here in the neighborhood, are of the quality that you get in other places,” said O’Flaherty. “The produce is better at Save-A-Lot, and everything’s much better at Kroger.”

She said she wishes that there were more options for her that wouldn’t require her to travel the nearly 8 miles to Kroger. 

“I would love to have a grocery store here that I can walk to. I get what I can there, but there’s not much there. We just need better quality groceries in all sections of Jackson,” she said. 

Jesse Huffman agrees. He’s lived in West Jackson for more than 20 years. 

“Kroger has bad food, too. Don’t get me wrong. But I could buy a banana and it may last five days,” compared to the nearby Grocery Depot, Huffman said, where “it’ll last a day.”

Huffman frequently travels to neighboring Clinton to Kroger to buy groceries, which he said adds to his expenses in buying fuel for his car. 

“I’m not frustrated by staying in a community without a grocery store, but I would love to have one. If you don’t have a ride – I have a way to get there, but it costs me more gas to go to Clinton than to go right here.”

In an emailed statement, Joel Edwards, Chief Operating Officer for The Roberts Company, which owns Grocery Depot and other grocery stores in Jackson, said the store is “deeply committed to providing a full-service supermarket that is safe, clean, and stocked with fresh meat and produce—particularly in an area of Jackson that has limited access to such resources. 

“We take customer feedback very seriously and strive to address any concerns with urgency.” 

Edwards also said they’re upgrading the dairy and frozen food cases.

“This investment reflects our ongoing commitment to providing a high-quality shopping experience for the community, both now and in the years to come,” Edwards said via email.

Food Depot on Northside Drive isn’t the only grocery store that’s closed in Jackson in recent years. Jackson Cash and Carry, another grocery store that Horhn championed for the city, closed in 2020. Now, Grocery Depot on Fortification Street, owned by The Roberts Company, is set to close, though no closure date has been set. 

With 13 grocery stores, Jackson is home to about one grocery store for every 11,000 of its residents, compared to nearby Clinton, which has one store for every 8,900 residents, or Bryam with one store per 4,200 people. 

Food insecurity, or the lack of access to enough healthy food options to meet a family’s needs, impacts nearly one in five people in Hinds county, where Jackson is located.

There are multiple factors that determine whether a community is food insecure, such as location of the nearest grocery store, access to transportation and food availability. It’s measured via a survey of families to determine their difficulty in finding food, such as if they couldn’t afford to buy more meals, or if they were worried about food running out and had to skip meals.

One in four children find themselves without access to food, especially during the summer when they don’t have school lunches to rely on. Organizations are working to keep children fed during the summer, with one offering families supplemental income to buy groceries. 

Mississippi declined to opt into the SUN bucks, or Summer EBT, program for the second year in a row, which would have provided families who qualify an extra $120 per child during the summer. A refusal to expand SUN bucks will leave an estimated 324,000 children across Mississippi without many options. 

Dr. Joseph C. Ewoodzie Jr. authored ‘Getting Something to Eat in Jackson,’ a book which examines how race and class factors into the Black food experience. He said that while food justice work is important, it’s key to present people with solutions that deal with poverty, not just food insecurity. 

“Sometimes when we think about helping folks, we’re trying to teach them how to cook. We’re trying to teach them how to shop properly at the grocery store. All of that is kind of misplaced energy,” said Ewoodzie. “What we need to be doing is trying to help them secure housing or trying to help them secure employment, and once we help them secure those things, they will have a larger bandwidth to consider food and how food matters in their lives.”

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