Mississippi Today
Pandemic is just one factor in chronic absenteeism
Post-pandemic absenteeism is declining in Mississippi schools, but kids are still missing more school than the pre-COVID days. At many schools, more than a third of all students are missing 18 days a year or more.
Nationwide, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to mark the point when absenteeism rates in public schools went from bad to worse. The numbers tell the same story in Mississippi. Though the pandemic is a causal factor, educators identified a myriad of reasons — from anxiety to socioeconomic struggles — as to why Mississippi’s public school students seem to be missing more school.
The Mississippi Department of Education defines chronic absenteeism as missing 10% of the school year or more — this works out to roughly two days a month, or 18 days in a year. In the 2022-23 school year, at nearly half of all school districts in Mississippi, 25% or more of the student population was chronically absent.
“Research says chronic absenteeism could impact students from reaching early learning milestones, can be a predictor for early dropout prior to graduation, and overall poor academic performance,” Armerita Tell, the Mississippi Department of Education’s director of the Office of Compulsory School Attendance and Dropout Prevention, said in an email. “The outcomes are not typical for all children, but the research points to the aforementioned top outcomes.”
In Mississippi, statewide absenteeism levels peaked in the 2021-2022 school year at 28%. Those numbers fell to 23.9% the following school year, indicating progress. But despite this recovery, those numbers do not come close to pre-COVID years like the 2018-2019 school year, when 13.1% of students were chronically absent.
Jasmine Thornton serves as managing director of Family and Community Engagement for RePublic Schools, which operates four charter schools in the Jackson area. After ReImagine Prep saw absenteeism rates near 40% after the 2022-23 school year, she spearheaded an effort to understand the reasons for such high rates of absenteeism and to find solutions to combat it.
One thing that became apparent was the pandemic had exacerbated the challenges that working class families faced in making sure their kids were making it to school.
“What I noticed is that coming out of COVID — because we serve working class families — a lot of kids became latchkey kids a little earlier,” she said.
Latchkey kids is a colloquial term to describe students who enter or leave home unaccompanied, most commonly because their parents are at work. ReImagine Prep serves students between fifth and eighth grade.
“Parents were going to work earlier than kids were going to school. So, we were entrusting that 10-year-olds are responsible enough to get themselves up and get themselves on the bus as well as younger siblings — that’s a lot of responsibility,” she said.
There is a well-established connection between socioeconomic status and chronic absenteeism. ReImagine primarily serves students from economically disadvantaged families.
Thornton also cited other factors, like reduced enthusiasm among some children for attending school as a result of heightened social anxiety. Because of COVID-19, many students lost the caregivers who would usher them out the door in the morning.
To address high rates of chronic absenteeism and to try to mitigate the outcomes associated with it, educators and administrators at ReImagine Prep are exploring a myriad of options, like Saturday school.
“We’ve had to be very creative. We started this whole, ‘You missed instruction? You just don’t get to miss it — you got Saturday school’,” she said. “I’m conducting home visits on chronically absent kids.”
In those home visits, Thonrnton often learns that food disparities or access to the right clothes can be what keeps kids at home. For kids who miss the bus in the morning, the school will run a second bus, when possible. Though official numbers have not been released, Thornton said ReImagine Prep has reduced chronic absenteeism by about 20%, to nearly 20% in the 2023-24 school year.
Union Public School District in east central Mississippi served 965 students in the 2022-23 school year. The district saw increases in absenteeism after the pandemic but posted the lowest absenteeism rate in the state in the 2022-23 school year at 10.78%.
While being a relatively small district helps, Superintendent Tyler Hansford pointed to other factors, like a large number of veteran teachers and strong community ties, that help make such numbers possible in his district.
“If we have a student that’s absent, most of the time, the parents will reach out to the teacher ahead of time and say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna be out for whatever reason.’ And the teachers make sure that they’re taken care of,” he said. “It’s really just about those relationships that I think our staff members have with our school community and community at large.”
Hansford noted that the district ties attendance to participation in extracurricular activities like sports and other school activities, as a means of incentivizing students to attend. The front offices call families to check in on students who have been absent — more often than not, absences are health related.
Though the pandemic had a significant impact on attendance at Union Public School District, he believes that open communication channels between the school and families was the key to bouncing back so quickly.
Jerica Thames, principal of Union Middle School, which posted a 6.20% abseteeism rate in the 20-22-23 year, was a teacher during the pandemic. She says that the pandemic had a significant hand in reminding parents in her classroom why it’s important for kids to be in the classroom, after they had to shoulder some of the burden of teaching for a while.
“That’s when they found a new respect for teachers, because they had to do a lot of teaching at home,” Thames said. “So they knew as well that the best place for their child to be was in the classroom.”
Statewide, the Mississippi Department of Education is continuing its push for more awareness among both parents and educators regarding the role that absenteeism plays in the success of their students through regularly holding regional training and programming.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=368204
Mississippi Today
Former Chief Justice Pittman, who served in all three branches of Mississippi government, dies
Former Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Edwin Lloyd Pittman, who served in multiple state elected offices, including all three branches of government, has died.
A news release from the state Supreme Court announced Pittman, who served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 2001 until 2004, died earlier this week at his Ridgeland home. He was 89.
Pittman was elected to the state Senate in 1964 representing his hometown of Hattiesburg. He went on to serve in the state elected offices of treasurer, secretary of state and attorney general. He served as attorney general from 1984 to 1988 before running unsuccessfully for governor.
After losing the gubernatorial bid in an ultra-competitive Democratic primary that included other statewide elected officials and a past governor, Pittman came back to capture a seat on the state Supreme Court in 1989.
“Chief Pittman provided exemplary leadership to the Mississippi Judiciary as chief justice,” said former Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr., who served with Pittman on the state’s highest court “His accomplishments for efficiency, transparency and access to justice had a profound effect on our legal system. He championed the establishment of (shorter deadlines for hearing cases … brought rule changes to allow cameras in the courtroom and improved access to justice for the poor and disadvantaged, to name a few.
“The court system today is better for his untiring efforts and dedication to duty.”
As chief justice, Pittman was credited with making the Supreme Court more transparent, posting dockets and oral arguments online, according to a court press release. He also led the effort to put in place regulations to allow news cameras in the courtroom at a time when only a handful of states were allowing them. Pittman worked to garner public funding to provide access to the judiciary for the needy.
Pittman said at the time, “We have to recognize the fact that we in many communities are frankly failing to get legal services to the people who need it … It’s time that the courts help shoulder the burden of rendering legal services to the needy in Mississippi.”
In 2011, former Gov. Haley Barbour awarded Pittman the Mississippi Medal of Service.
“The people of this state have honored me with a wonderful trip through life,” Pittman said at the awards ceremony.
Current Chief Justice Mike Randolph said, “Even though he served in all these important government positions, he never lost his common touch. I regret that I didn’t get to serve with him. I hope that when I’m done, that I will be as well thought of as he was.”
Randolph, also from Hattiesburg, now holds the post on the court that was held by Pittman.
“He was a consummate politician and public servant. He’s an important figure in Mississippi’s history,” said U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James Graves. Graves was the third Black Mississippian to serve on the modern Supreme Court. Earlier in Graves’ career, he was hired to a position in the Attorney General’s office by Pittman.
Pittman was last in public view when he was asked by then-Attorney General Jim Hood to look at the legality of a frontage road being built in Rankin County to provide easier access to busy Lakeland Drive for a small neighborhood where then Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves lived.
The end result of the controversy is that the access road was not built.
After retiring from the Supreme Court, Pittman joined a law firm in Madison County.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Plans to build Jackson green spaces aimed at tackling heat, flooding and blight
A group of nonprofits in and around the capital city are teaming up to build new green spaces in Jackson, looking to offer environmental benefits such as limiting both flooding as well as a phenomenon known as “heat islands.”
Dominika Parry, a Polish native, founded the Ridgeland-based 2C Mississippi in 2017, hoping to raise awareness around climate change impacts in the state. The group has attempted relatively progressive ideas before, such as bringing climate curriculums to public schools and establishing the state’s first community solar program.
With a lack of political appetite, though, those projects have struggled to get off the ground, Parry explained – “I realized that no one in Mississippi talks about climate change,” she told Mississippi Today. But she’s confident that the green spaces initiative will have a meaningful environmental impact.
In one project with the Farish Street Community of Shalom, 2C Mississippi is building green spaces along the historic Farish Street in downtown Jackson. The groups recently acquired $1.5 million through the Inflation Reduction Act for the idea.
A 2020 study in Jackson from consultant CAPA Strategies identified “heat islands,” or urban areas that absorb more heat because they have fewer trees and bodies of water. The study found that at times during the summer, parts of downtown were over 10 degrees hotter than areas around the edge of the city.
The idea for the spaces, which will go in courtyards between Amite and Griffith Streets, includes new trees, vertical gardens, and a maintained grassy area for gatherings and events like the neighborhood’s Juneteenth celebration (renderings of the project from 2C Mississippi are shown below). Parry said they’ll start to plant the trees in January and have the whole spaces done sometime next year. Then, she plans to monitor the impacts, including on the energy needs of surrounding buildings.
Dorothy Davis, Shalom’s president, said that the new tree canopy will give shelter from the simmering temperatures that brew over the city concrete. It’s a concern in an area where, Davis said, many live without reliable or even any air conditioning. Over a few weeks this summer, as an extension of the 2020 study, she and a group of local students measured the heat index along Farish Street, which Davis said never dipped below 100 degrees.
“It wasn’t surprising because I’ve been in Mississippi all my life, I know how Mississippi heat is,” said Davis, who has been in Jackson since 1963. “But it was very concerning because we have a lot of elderly people in this area especially.”
According to the National Weather Service, which has temperature records dating back to 1896, five of the top 10 hottest years in Jackson have occurred in the last 10 years.
In addition to the Farish Street project, 2C Mississippi is also working on building “microparks” around west Jackson. Voice of Calvary Ministries, another local nonprofit, partners with the city of Jackson to eliminate blight, and, along with some other groups, is working to restore and build new homes in about 150 properties around West Capitol Street near the Jackson Zoo.
“We have a lot of lots that we can really do some reinvestment in, not just with housing, but the parks,” said VOCM’s president and CEO Margaret Johnson. “I think we can offer something new and different to an impoverished area of the city.”
Johnson explained that the area is near a flood zone, and the microparks are a preemptive measure to reduce risk as well as the financial burden of flood insurance.
Many of the lots have been abandoned for years, she said, often after people moved away or an owner died without a family member coming to take care of the property. With no one to tend to the land, it deteriorates, turning into an eyesore.
“It seems to be more concentrated in west Jackson than some other parts of the city,” Johnson said, adding that the area doesn’t have a real park for children to play in or for people to get together. “There hasn’t been any real, new construction in west Jackson, of any significant level, in the last, 20, 25, 30 years.”
So far, VOCM and 2C Mississippi have picked about six neighboring lots on Louisiana Avenue to turn into microparks, which Parry said will be done by the end of 2025. The groups also plan to hold a community meeting Oct. 15 to invite residents’ feedback. Johnson hopes they can eventually expand the idea to other parts of Jackson.
“I think once we do this and people see it, we can go to other parts of the city and do the same thing,” she said. “So, I think this is just the start of something great for the city of Jackson.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1912
Sept. 27, 1912
“Father of the Blues” W.C. Handy published “Memphis Blues,” what is believed to be the first commercially successful blues song.
An Alabama native, Handy looked more like a preacher than a blues player. In 1902, the musician traveled throughout the Mississippi Delta, settling in Clarksdale, where he led an orchestra. While waiting for a train in Tutwiler, he heard a Black man “plunking a guitar beside me while I slept … As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. … The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.”
Then he heard a Black man “crooning all of his calls in the key of G, … moaning like a presiding elder preaching at a revival meeting.”
In 1909, Handy and his band moved to Memphis, where they played in clubs on Beale Street, and he began to write, incorporating these local sounds into his music. Two years after his success with “Memphis Blues,” “The St. Louis Blues” became a million-selling sheet music phenomenon.
Handy became one of the most successful African-American music publishers of his day, and when he died in New York City at the age of 84, more than 150,000 paid their respects. The same year he died, the film “St. Louis Blues” came to the big screen, telling a fictionalized version of his life story, starring Nat King Cole and others.
Throughout his life, Handy continued his battle for the dignity of African Americans, some of whom happened to play music. In 1960, the still segregated city of Memphis built a bronze statue honoring Handy in a city park on Beale Street, and nine years later, the Postal Service honored him on a stamp. These days, a number of music festivals and awards bear his name, and Marc Cohn popularized Handy in his 1991 song, “Walking in Memphis,” which paid tribute to legends of the river city.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
-
Mississippi Today5 days ago
On this day in 1927
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed7 days ago
Tracking the Tropics: Chance of tropical disturbance in Caribbean at 60%
-
Mississippi Today4 days ago
‘Goon Squad’ victims’ attorneys demand censure and removal of Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey
-
News from the South - Texas News Feed7 days ago
New details surrounding the intense home invasion and attempted robbery in Spring Branch
-
News from the South - Tennessee News Feed2 days ago
Senators push increased legislative oversight of VA | Tennessee
-
Mississippi News Video1 day ago
Wynndale Steakhouse up for sale
-
Mississippi Today2 days ago
Attorney General Merrick Garland calls Goon Squad’s acts ‘a betrayal of their community, a betrayal of their profession’
-
News from the South - Louisiana News Feed2 days ago
Caddo Parish School Board hires new superintendent with three-year deal | Louisiana