Connect with us

Mississippi Today

Rejected State Supt. Robert Taylor says the situation ‘puts a stain on the state’

Published

on

Rejected State Supt. Robert Taylor says the situation ‘puts a stain on the state’

Two weeks after being rejected by the Senate to serve as state superintendent, Robert Taylor defended his record of improving schools and said his nomination was manipulated into a political issue by Sen. Chris McDaniel as a part of his campaign for lieutenant governor.

Robert Taylor

Taylor lost out on the job to lead Mississippi’s public schools when the Senate rejected his nomination last month. Had he been confirmed, he would have been the second Black person to serve as state superintendent. Those who opposed his nomination took issue with his track record turning around schools, his status as an outsider, and the selection process itself. Immediately after the nomination failed, Senate Democrats said it was because of race.

“The person that we’re talking about, Dr. Taylor, is a native son,” Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, said in a press conference after the vote. “He’s a Mississippian, who went to North Carolina and worked in their system, that system rated is higher than Mississippi, and he came home to serve. He’s a great and impressive son of Mississippi, and we rejected him for no reason other than the fact that God made him Black.”

Taylor was most recently a deputy state superintendent for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction before moving back to Mississippi to begin his tenure as state superintendent in January. A native of Laurel, he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi and his masters and doctorate in North Carolina.

Earlier in the confirmation process, questions were raised about Taylor writing for a Black student publication at USM, The Unheard Word, while he was in college. In an interview he gave in 2020 when the university celebrated the 30th anniversary of The Unheard Word, he said he wrote for the publication because it “… in my opinion, recognized that The University of Southern Mississippi was in the most racist state in the Union … ” In an interview with Mississippi Today, Taylor said he felt this way in college and his worldview has since been broadened by living in other places.

Sen. Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg, chaired the education nominations subcommittee and said Taylor’s writing for the publication was not something he remembered people talking about a lot.

“Really I don’t think that was a huge part of what happened, but you’d have to ask other senators who voted no,” Johnson said.

Taylor said his conversations with senators focused on education issues, but that when his involvement with The Unheard Word came up, he was straightforward with them and said it didn’t seem to be a concern for people.

“I like to think (race) didn’t play a role, but I do believe that politics had everything to do with it,” Taylor said.

McDaniel, the Republican senator from Ellisville, made comments on Facebook before and after the confirmation vote calling Taylor a supporter of critical race theory, affirmative action, and the removal of historical monuments, among other things.

“(Taylor) has all the makings of someone who has sold out to this woke culture,” McDaniel said on Facebook after the vote. “The step the Senate made today was to in some respects push back against the woke culture, to push back against liberalism in the institutions.”

Taylor rejected these claims and said he’s never spoken publicly on any of these issues.

“The only thing a person could say about Robert Taylor is that he is a registered Democrat in the state of North Carolina,” Taylor said. “That is it.”

Taylor said McDaniel wanted to use his nomination as a part of his campaign for lieutenant governor, to put pressure on senators with primary opponents who had previously told Taylor they would support him and later changed their votes.

“I represent the conservatives in the state of Mississippi,” McDaniel told Mississippi Today. “I wasn’t attempting to put pressure on anyone in a primary race. I was doing the same thing I’ve done for the past 16 years, and that’s to fight for my conservative values and principles the best way I know how.”

Taylor reiterated that while he would like to believe he was not rejected because he is Black, the accusations made against him make it look that way.

“Any senator that voted no, I would like to think it was not because I am Black, but they need to understand what the appearance looks like to people in the field,” he said. “When I am accosted about something I said thirty-five years ago, a view of why I did something thirty-five years ago, and all these things are said about me to make it appear as though I’m a particular type of person, people are going to look at that and believe that it’s race-based. If that’s the case or not, you’d have to ask those individual senators.”

Senators also expressed frustration with the hiring process, saying that the state Board of Education was not transparent, and that Taylor had not worked as an educator in Mississippi. Individuals familiar with the confirmation process said many local superintendents asked the state Board of Education to select a Mississippi educator and were frustrated by the pick.

A review of the hiring process by the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) found that of the 26 candidates who applied for the position, nine were employed in Mississippi and 17 were employed in another state. A source close to the hiring process said that of the four finalists, three were working in Mississippi.

Taylor, who prior to this appointment worked in North Carolina schools since 1992, said he did not get the impression that local superintendents wanted someone different when he met them.

“What I saw was superintendents looking forward to working with someone who had actually done the work that they had done,” he said. “You’re always going to have those that look for something different, and I absolutely respect that, but they were very gracious with me when I met with superintendents.”

Carey Wright, the previous state superintendent, had worked in district-level leadership positions but never served as a local superintendent before becoming the leader of Mississippi’s public education system.

Concerns were also raised about whether the district Taylor led for 10 years improved enough under his tenure. Some senators said they were dissatisfied with his record.

Taylor led the Bladen County School District from 2011 to 2021, but data is only available for some of those years on the North Carolina School Report Cards website. Between 2015 and 2019, the number of C-rated schools in the district rose from four to seven. D-rated schools fell from eight to three between 2015 and 2018, before jumping back up to six in 2019. The graduation rate for that period also rose from 77.3% to 91.6%, surpassing the state average during that period.

Taylor said the North Carolina accountability model, or the system that gives out letter grades, is significantly different from the system in Mississippi. North Carolina’s system is much more reliant on proficiency, or how many students hit a certain benchmark, he said, while Mississippi’s puts more weight in how much districts grow students from one year to the next.

“I’m very proud of the track record that I had, we were never a failing district,” Taylor said. “That accountability system is very different than what you see in Mississippi and a person would need to look at that in context.”

Taylor had publicly discussed his goal of providing direct support to low-performing districts and had visited all but one of them in his first two months on the job to learn about their needs. He said he had hoped to hire coaches for administrators and create regional support teams that would work with those districts in a variety of areas, a method he said had been successful in North Carolina.

“I’ve seen a state superintendent visit my district once in my 15 years in the classroom, and that was three weeks ago when Dr. Taylor came to Rosedale,” Shana Bolden, a teacher in the West Bolivar School District, said in a Teach Plus Mississippi press release. “I think the search should include public input before a decision is made. There should also be a way for teachers to have a voice in the process, since whoever is hired directly impacts us and our students.”

In terms of next steps, Taylor is currently looking for opportunities that would be a good fit for him, both in Mississippi and elsewhere.

“I certainly want to work in a place where someone welcomes my ability to work with an educational system and state for improvement,” he said. “There’s never a place I’ve been that didn’t improve. I’ve never worked in a place that was replete with resources that made the work easy. My work has always been uphill in challenging situations and I know that’s where I’m needed.”

He added his rejection will likely make this position harder for the state Board of Education to fill moving forward and that he does not expect any candidate will be willing to move here before being confirmed by the Legislature.

“(Senators) have to recognize the position they’ve put the (Mississippi Department of Education) in and the state of Mississippi because the rest of the nation has looked at what happened, and I’ve had people from all over the country reach out and share how horrible they thought this was,” he said. “It puts a stain on the state.”

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/states-lack-of-jail-inspections-a-disaster-in-the-making-lawyer-says/

Mississippi Today

Mississippi River flooding Vicksburg, expected to crest on Monday

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – @alxrzr – 2025-04-25 16:04:00

Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said Friday floodwaters from the Mississippi River, which have reached homes in and around Vicksburg, will likely persist until early May. Elfer estimated there areabout 15 to 20 roads underwater in the area.

A truck sits in high water after the owner parked, then boated to his residence on Chickasaw Road in Vicksburg as a rising Mississippi River causes backwater flooding, Friday, April 25, 2025.

“We’re about half a foot (on the river gauge) from a major flood,” he said. “But we don’t think it’s going to be like in 2011, so we can kind of manage this.”

The National Weather projects the river to crest at 49.5 feet on Monday, making it the highest peak at the Vicksburg gauge since 2020. Elfer said some residents in north Vicksburg — including at the Ford Subdivision as well as near Chickasaw Road and Hutson Street — are having to take boats to get home, adding that those who live on the unprotected side of the levee are generally prepared for flooding.

A rising Mississippi River causing backwater flooding near Chickasaw Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.
Old tires aligned a backyard as a deterrent to rising water north of Vicksburg along U.S. 61, Friday, April 25, 2025.
As the Mississippi River rises, backwater flooding creeps towards a home located on Falk Steel Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

“There are a few (inundated homes), but we’ve mitigated a lot of them,” he said. “Some of the structures have been torn down or raised. There are a few people that still live on the wet side of the levee, but they kind of know what to expect. So we’re not too concerned with that.”

The river first reached flood stage in the city — 43 feet — on April 14. State officials closed Highway 465, which connects the Eagle Lake community just north of Vicksburg to Highway 61, last Friday.

Flood waters along Kings Point Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

Elfer said the areas impacted are mostly residential and he didn’t believe any businesses have been affected, emphasizing that downtown Vicksburg is still safe for visitors. He said Warren County has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to secure pumps and barriers.

“Everybody thus far has been very cooperative,” he said. “We continue to tell people stay out of the flood areas, don’t drive around barricades and don’t drive around road close signs. Not only is it illegal, it’s dangerous.”

NWS projects the river to stay at flood stage in Vicksburg until May 6. The river reached its record crest of 57.1 feet in 2011.

The boat launch area is closed and shored up on Levee Street in Vicksburg as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
The boat launch area (right) is closed and under water on Levee Street in Vicksburg as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
City of Vicksburg workers shore up the bank along Levee Street as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
The old pedestrian bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

With domestic violence law, victims ‘will be a number with a purpose,’ mother says

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-25 15:07:00

Joslin Napier. Carlos Collins. Bailey Mae Reed. 

They are among Mississippi domestic violence homicide victims whose family members carried their photos as the governor signed a bill that will establish a board to study such deaths and how to prevent them. 

Tara Gandy, who lost her daughter Napier in Waynesboro in 2022, said it’s a moment she plans to tell her 5-year-old grandson about when he is old enough. Napier’s presence, in spirit, at the bill signing can be another way for her grandson to feel proud of his mother. 

“(The board) will allow for my daughter and those who have already lost their lives to domestic violence … to no longer be just a number,” Gandy said. “They will be a number with a purpose.” 

Family members at the April 15 private bill signing included Ashla Hudson, whose son Collins, died last year in Jackson. Grandparents Mary and Charles Reed and brother Colby Kernell attended the event in honor of Bailey Mae Reed, who died in Oxford in 2023. 

Joining them were staff and board members from the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the statewide group that supports shelters and advocated for the passage of Senate Bill 2886 to form a Domestic Violence Facility Review Board. 

The law will go into effect July 1, and the coalition hopes to partner with elected officials who will make recommendations for members to serve on the board. The coalition wants to see appointees who have frontline experience with domestic violence survivors, said Luis Montgomery, public policy specialist for the coalition. 

A spokesperson from Gov. Tate Reeves’ office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Establishment of the board would make Mississippi the 45th state to review domestic violence fatalities. 

Montgomery has worked on passing a review board bill since December 2023. After an unsuccessful effort in 2024, the coalition worked to build support and educate people about the need for such a board. 

In the recent legislative session, there were House and Senate versions of the bill that unanimously passed their respective chambers. Authors of the bills are from both political parties. 

The review board is tasked with reviewing a variety of documents to learn about the lead up and circumstances in which people died in domestic violence-related fatalities, near fatalities and suicides – records that can include police records, court documents, medical records and more. 

From each review, trends will emerge and that information can be used for the board to make recommendations to lawmakers about how to prevent domestic violence deaths. 

“This is coming at a really great time because we can really get proactive,” Montgomery said. 

Without a board and data collection, advocates say it is difficult to know how many people have died or been injured in domestic-violence related incidents.

A Mississippi Today analysis found at least 300 people, including victims, abusers and collateral victims, died from domestic violence between 2020 and 2024. That analysis came from reviewing local news stories, the Gun Violence Archive, the National Gun Violence Memorial, law enforcement reports and court documents. 

Some recent cases the board could review are the deaths of Collins, Napier and Reed. 

In court records, prosecutors wrote that Napier, 24, faced increased violence after ending a relationship with Chance Fabian Jones. She took action, including purchasing a firearm and filing for a protective order against Jones.

Jones’s trial is set for May 12 in Wayne County. His indictment for capital murder came on the first anniversary of her death, according to court records. 

Collins, 25, worked as a nurse and was from Yazoo City. His ex-boyfriend Marcus Johnson has been indicted for capital murder and shooting into Collins’ apartment. Family members say Collins had filed several restraining orders against Johnson. 

Johnson was denied bond and remains in jail. His trial is scheduled for July 28 in Hinds County.  

He was a Jackson police officer for eight months in 2013. Johnson was separated from the department pending disciplinary action leading up to immediate termination, but he resigned before he was fired, Jackson police confirmed to local media. 

Reed, 21, was born and raised in Michigan and moved to Water Valley to live with her grandparents and help care for her cousin, according to her obituary. 

Kylan Jacques Phillips was charged with first degree murder for beating Reed, according to court records. In February, the court ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation to determine if he is competent to stand trial, according to court documents. 

At the bill signing, Gandy said it was bittersweet and an honor to meet the families of other domestic violence homicide victims.

“We were there knowing we are not alone, we can travel this road together and hopefully find ways to prevent and bring more awareness about domestic violence,” she said.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Court to rule on DeSoto County Senate districts with special elections looming

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-25 15:06:00

A federal three-judge panel will rule in coming days on how political power in northwest Mississippi will be allocated in the state Senate and whether any incumbents in the DeSoto County area might have to campaign against each other in November special elections.  

The panel, comprised of all George W. Bush-appointed judges, ordered state officials last week to, again, craft a new Senate map for the area in the suburbs of Memphis. The panel has held that none of the state’s prior maps gave Black voters a realistic chance to elect candidates of their choice. 

The latest map proposed by the all-Republican State Board of Election Commissioners tweaked only four Senate districts in northwest Mississippi and does not pit any incumbent senators against each other. 

The state’s proposal would keep the Senate districts currently held by Sen. Michael McLendon, a Republican from Hernando and Sen. Kevin Blackwell, a Republican from Southaven, in majority-white districts. 

But it makes Sen. David Parker’s district a slightly majority-Black district. Parker, a white Republican from Olive Branch, would run in a district with a 50.1% black voting-age population, according to court documents. 

The proposal also maintains the district held by Sen. Reginald Jackson, a Democrat from Marks, as a majority-Black district, although it reduces the Black voting age population from 61% to 53%.  

Gov. Tate Reeves, Secretary of State Michael Watson, and Attorney General Lynn Fitch comprise the State Board of Election Commissioners. Reeves and Watson voted to approve the plan. But Watson, according to meeting documents, expressed a wish that the state had more time to consider different proposals. 

Fitch did not attend the meeting, but Deputy Attorney General Whitney Lipscomb attended in her place. Lipscomb voted against the map, although it is unclear why. Fitch’s office declined to comment on why she voted against the map because it involves pending litigation. 

The reason for redrawing the districts is that the state chapter of the NAACP and Black voters in the state sued Mississippi officials for drawing legislative districts in a way that dilutes Black voting power. 

The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU, are likely to object to the state’s newest proposal, and they have until April 29 to file an objection with the court

The plaintiffs have put forward two alternative proposals for the area in the event the judges rule against the state’s plans. 

The first option would place McLendon and Blackwell in the same district, and the other would place McLendon and Jackson in the same district. 

It is unclear when the panel of judges will issue a ruling on the state’s plan, but they will not issue a ruling until the plaintiffs file their remaining court documents next week. 

While the November election is roughly six months away, changing legislative districts across counties and precincts is technical work, and local election officials need time to prepare for the races. 

The judges have not yet ruled on the full elections calendar, but U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick said at a hearing earlier this month that the panel was committed have the elections in November. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Continue Reading

Trending