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ROSEDALE — The West Bolivar School District stopped busing and feeding summer school students this month. The problem wasn’t that the school ran out of food or money. It’s that the school board hadn’t met in about two months to approve purchases and contract workers.

Fewer than three board members, too few for a quorum, showed up to at least four meetings in April, May and June. State law requires a quorum to approve spending and hiring.

Meanwhile, the district stopped paying its bills. Bus drivers and food service workers lost their summer jobs. 

“We’re supposed to be the ones that make the decisions for the children, and we can’t come together,” school board President Jackie Lloyd told Mississippi Today. She was one of two board members who showed up regularly to meetings over the last two months.

For nearly two weeks, the Delta district lacked a top executive. District Superintendent L’Kenna Whitehead, whose contract was not renewed by the board for the next school year, is on vacation through the end of June. 

The board has yet to name a superintendent for the new school year, which begins Aug. 24.

The school board on Thursday was able to appoint a designee to purchase food and supplies on behalf of the district. 

At its Thursday meeting, enough board members were present to approve bill payments, renew contracts for student support services, approve monthly financial reports as well as funding to continue an early college program, among other important board business.

West Bolivar’s school board governance woes come at a time when state lawmakers are debating measures to increase qualifications for school board members and allow members to be removed for misconduct and poor meeting attendance. District consolidation is also on the table as a way to reduce bureaucracy and tackle dysfunctional school leadership.

The Mississippi Department of Education is investigating West Bolivar schools, according to a response to a records request filed by Mississippi Today in March. State education department officials Jo Ann Malone, associate state superintendent, and John Ferrell, chief of school and district transformation, observed the Thursday meeting by teleconference. Department spokesperson Shanderia Minor told Mississippi Today she could not provide additional comment in light of the active investigation.

Over half of residents in Rosedale, one of several rural communities in Bolivar County served by the district, live below the poverty line. Over a third of residents in Shaw, which is roughly 28 miles southwest from Rosedale, live below the poverty line.

The district received “D” and “F” ratings on the state accountability system for the past five school years.

Turnover in critical administrative positions and a vacancy on the school board could continue to stymie operations.

The district’s business manager and payroll clerk have given notice of their plans to resign at the end of June, Lloyd told Mississippi Today. That raises concerns there won’t be anyone in place to cut paychecks for employees or to close out the year’s accounts. Lloyd said she also worries that the district could miss the budget submission deadline to the county board of supervisors by Aug. 15. 

In addition, no one qualified to run for the open school board seat in November. 

The school board also missed its deadline to choose an interim board member, so the position will remain vacant until at least November, when a candidate would need to run for the position. 

About 10% of Rosedale residents and 16% of Shaw residents have at least a bachelor’s degree, which is a requirement for most administrative roles in a school district.

Open leadership positions have the district in a “chokehold,” Lloyd said. The district also needs a curriculum director and a high school principal. Lloyd said she hopes the district can find a superintendent, but she fears many superintendent candidates are already contracted with a district. 

Meanwhile, some district staff are working without the promise of a paycheck. At the meeting Thursday, Lloyd thanked Cook, the maintenance director, for driving a busload of students to summer school in a school bus although he did not get paid for it. 

District parents, guardians, staff and community members have been preparing food for students. Lloyd thanked them Thursday for stepping up to help.

“Some of those individuals that work in the district paid out of their pocket to order food to make sure those children were fed,” she told Mississippi Today.

Law enforcement officers used tear gas to disperse a crowd Tuesday in the north Mississippi city of Senatobia as people protested the police shooting Sunday that killed a 1-year-old boy and wounded an adult, ABC24 reported. National civil rights attorney Ben Crump is part of the legal team representing the child’s family. 

“A 1-year-old child is dead because police officers in Mississippi opened fire on a car in a crowded Walmart parking lot,” Crump said in a Tuesday statement. “ … We intend to seek justice for baby Kohen and the life that was stolen from him.”

The toddler, Kohen Wiley, was in the car with his mother and a family friend in the parking lot of a Walmart in Senatobia. Police and Tate County sheriff’s deputies were responding to an alleged shoplifting, and they tried to stop the car. State officials said the driver drove in the officers’ direction and nearly hit one, leading an officer to fire at the car.

Before the shooting, Kohen’s mother said she tried to tell officers that a child was in the car, according to Crump’s statement. Family members told local media that the woman and family friend did not shoplift and were buying diapers. 

Kohen later died from his injuries at a local hospital, and the family friend was critically wounded.

Local media also reported crowds gathered outside Senatobia City Hall as officials met. Hundreds of people gathered at the Walmart on Tuesday, and police deployed tear gas in the parking lot of the store.

Crump is representing the family with Memphis civil rights attorney Van Turner. 

On Monday, Tate County Sheriff Luke Shepherd declined to comment about the shooting. 

WAPT reported on Tuesday the officer involved in the shooting was put on administrative leave.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which investigates all law enforcement shootings, will present findings to the attorney general’s office. From there, the attorney general’s office will review the officer’s use of force and present evidence to a local grand jury about potential criminal charges. 

Crump has represented other Missisisppi residents, including the family of Demartravion “Trey” Reed, the 21-year-old Black man found hanging on Delta State University’s campus in September last year. Officials ruled his death a suicide, but questions from family, community members and beyond remained about whether there was any foul play. 

Crump and attorney Vanessa Jones said in October they planned to launch an independent investigation. They have yet to reveal the results of the second autopsy, which was performed by Dr. Matthias I. Okoye.

Crump has also represented Mississippi residents in law enforcement-related deaths, such as the family of Dexter Wade, who was hit by a cruiser driven by an off-duty Jackson police officer on Interstate 55 and whose body was buried in the Hinds County pauper grave for months before family learned he was there.

Update, 6/16/2026: This story was updated to include media reports that law enforcement deployed tear gas on a crowd protesting at Walmart in Senatobia Tuesday evening.

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson has informed legislative leaders that his office is taking steps to prepare for redistricting in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision opening the door for states to eliminate majority-Black electoral districts.

Watson, a Republican who is running for lieutenant governor, referenced the June 9 letter in a news release on Tuesday. 

“Recently, in light of the ruling by the United States Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais et al., its direct impact on the existing legislative district maps, and my statutory duty as Mississippi’s Chief Elections Officer, I notified Speaker Jason White and Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann of our team’s intent at the Secretary of State’s Office to begin preparing the Statewide Elections Management System (SEMS) for a reversion to the original 2022 legislative redistricting map adopted by the Mississippi Legislature,” Watson said. 

The ruling in the Louisiana v. Callais case places Mississippi and other Southern states at the center of a national partisan and racial political battle over redistricting. Some Republicans already running or expected to run for statewide office in 2027 have taken steps to wade into the redistricting debate. 

Watson said he had to send a letter to inform lawmakers what timeline they face if they intend to redraw districts before the 2027 legislative elections. This is because no redistricting changes may be made to the statewide election system while an election is in progress, Watson said. 

The Statewide Elections Management System is the statewide system that county election officials use to administer elections at the local level. Legislative districts can include portions of groups of counties, and this system determines the legislative district for each voter.. 

The timeline Watson pointed out said that for the 2027 statewide legislative elections, changes to the election management system would be prohibited from early June 2027 through mid-Dec. 2027. 

Watson also said that for the 2026 midterm federal elections coming up in November, changes to the system will be prohibited from 60 days before election day. Mississippi has already conducted primaries for the fast-approaching midterms, and lawmakers would have to take the improbable step of invalidating those results and conducting new elections, a plan most legislative leaders haven’t expressed an appetite for carrying out. 

White and Hosemann, who lead the majority-white, Republican-dominated Legislature, have already formed special committees in both chambers to consider redistricting. They could redraw several different electoral maps, including the congressional maps, state legislative maps and state supreme court maps. 

In addition to Watson, other potential Republican candidates for statewide office in 2027 have opined on redistricting, showing the issue could be salient among GOP primary voters. Since the Callais ruling came down, state Auditor Shad White, considered a likely Republican candidate for governor in 2027, has been beating the drum for the Legislature to return and redraw congressional maps in a way that could oust U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the state’s lone Democrat and lone Black member of Congress, from his seat in this year’s midterms.  

On the legislative maps level White and Hosemann have not declared outright that they intend to revert to the maps they initially drew in 2022 to account for population shifts across the state. A redrawing of those maps could erase some small gains Democrats made in the Legislature in recent years.

White and Hosemann did not immediately respond on Tuesday to requests for comment about Watson’s letter. 

Lawmakers, using data from the 2020 U.S. Census, passed a new legislative map in 2022, as states normally do when they redraw state legislative and congressional districts. But a group of Black voters successfully sued the state, arguing that the state didn’t draw enough majority-Black legislative districts during this process. 

A federal three-judge panel agreed and ordered the state to create additional majority-Black legislative districts, which the Legislature did in 2025. But the U.S. Supreme Court later reversed that lower-court ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s order reversing that lower-court decision didn’t negate the 2025 laws the Legislature passed to redraw the districts, so it’s unclear if Watson’s decision to prepare for a reversion to the old districts conflicts with the 2025 maps. 

Gov. Tate Reeves and White, though, have said they believe lawmakers will redraw legislative districts in a special session this year, before lawmakers convene in January for the 2027 regular session. 

In a statement, state Rep. Cheikh Taylor, the Mississippi Democratic Party chairman, said Watson’s move shows Republicans are trying to revert to a political era before Black residents had fair representation.  

“Let’s be clear about what Michael Watson is doing,” said Chairman Taylor. “He is laying the administrative groundwork to hand Republicans a political windfall before a single public hearing has been held, before a single map has been drawn, and before Mississippi voters have had any say.”

Republican state officials have said redistricting based on race is wrong, but support redistricting based on partisan interests.  

Jackson Mayor John Horhn is hoping to stave off a strike of city bus workers that could leave low-income and disabled Jacksonians stranded in the summer heat amid stalled contract negotiations with the third-party company that manages JTRAN.

In an emailed statement Monday night, Horhn did not say what steps he would take to achieve that goal and was unavailable for an interview with Mississippi Today. Both sides of the dispute have asked the mayor to intervene. 

The impending strike by the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1208, composed of bus drivers and other JTRAN employees, could occur any time in the next 30 days if the Texas-based management company, MV Transportation, continues to push for cost-cutting measures, such as hiring drivers without commercial licenses. 

The public service represents a lifeline for Jackson residents who depend on the buses to get to work, health appointments or the grocery store. While the precise number of Jacksonians who ride the bus is not known, JTRAN gives tens of thousands of rides each month, according to the city. 

“My priority is to avoid any disruption in service while ensuring that our drivers are treated fairly and that residents who depend on public transit can continue to get to work, school, medical appointments, and other destinations,” Horhn said in the statement. 

The disagreement between the union and MV Transportation has also been exacerbated by a company proposal to save money that Horhn’s administration brought to the Jackson City Council two weeks ago. 

Pieter Teeuwissen, the city’s chief administrative officer, pulled the measure before the council could discuss it. But the union felt the proposal undermined its negotiations with MV Transportation. 

“We are carefully evaluating both perspectives to determine what makes the most sense for our riders, our workers, and our taxpayers,” Horhn said Monday.

In an open letter to the city, MV Transportation, which calls itself the largest privately-owned transportation company in America, said it had drafted the proposal “in response to Mayor Horhn’s citywide call to address Jackson’s significant fiscal challenges.” 

Jackson is facing a sizable budget deficit. The company also said it is losing money on its current contract with the city.

“A service redesign, or some alternative outside funding which no one has been able to identify, is necessary to provide our employees with the substantial raises needed to make their wages competitive,” the company wrote. 

All told, the plan would save the city about $1.8 million out of a roughly $9 million contract, said Gary Coles, MV Transportation’s chief customer success officer. It would also save the company money. 

The plan would cut two fixed-service routes, shorten the work day, eliminate Saturday services and allow MV Transportation to hire drivers without commercial licenses for on-demand, “microtransit” services.

Coles said the company wants to meet with Jacksonians to discuss the details of its proposed overhaul and is looking to hire interns to talk to bus riders. He also said the company is hoping city officials will step in. 

“As far as Mayor Horhn or President (Brian) Grizzell in the council, Jackson needs that leadership right now,” he said.

At a press conference on Monday, Charles Tornes, a bus driver and the union president, said he met with Horhn months ago to discuss MV Transportation’s cost-cutting proposals. During the meeting, Tornes said the mayor said he didn’t have enough details to form a position. 

But the union has not met with the mayor since, Tornes said.

The two sides have been negotiating what’s known as a collective bargaining agreement since a previous version expired in December 2025. The union voted to authorize the strike Friday after voting down MV Transportation’s most recent proposal.

Though JTRAN is publicly funded, the negotiations have so far been conducted in private. The union represents employees of MV Transportation, which holds the city’s contract to operate and manage the transit system. 

Tornes said the union is mainly seeking competitive pay raises. The union also wants to maintain benefits it had won through previous contract negotiations but believes MV Transportation as attempting to curtail, such as bus drivers’ ability to select their routes. 

“As a whole, we just feel it is an attack on our contract,” Tornes said of MV Transportation’s proposals.

For its part, Coles said MV Transportation wants to change how JTRAN assigns bus routes to drivers. If a driver cannot work on a particular day, Coles said the company wants to be able to call in employees on their days off. 

“I wish I could give you a very clear explanation, and unfortunately I cannot because it confuses me,” Coles said when asked how driver assignments currently work.

The company is also seeking the ability to switch drivers between the fixed routes and its paratransit service for people with disabilities and other medical needs.   

MV Transportation is also offering $500 bonuses to union members if the city implements its proposed redesign. MV Transportation has argued it cannot fund higher pay raises without the city agreeing to its money-saving measures.

In early June, the Horhn administration brought MV Transportation’s proposed overhaul before the council. 

But after hearing from disability rights activist Scott Crawford and other concerned JTRAN riders, the administration removed the agenda item and referred it to a committee for further discussion. 

The sides have sparred before. Months after MV Transportation won the JTRAN contract in January 2024, the union went on a two-week strike due to concerns over long hours, wrongful terminations and unsafe working conditions. 

Then-mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba tried to act as a mediator between MV Transportation and the union. When that failed, he called on “both sides to return to the table and uphold their responsibilities to the residents who depend on them.” 

A survivor enters a domestic violence shelter. A trained staff member listens and realizes there are similar, sometimes hidden, signs of sexual assault and possibly trafficking.  

Leaders of state coalitions that support victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking say different kinds of abuse can be intertwined, and those providing support and advocacy to victims need to take a multifaceted approach to helping them. 

“In the work, the most important thing we always know is we cannot work in isolation,” said Vera Johnson, program specialist-system change for the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 

Johnson helped organize and emcee a conference last week that drew over 80 people from across the state. The coalition hosted the event, “Crossroads of Care: The Intersectionality of Survivor Support,” attended by staff from shelters, church-based support programs, college campuses, the legal system and law enforcement. 

Domestic violence, sexual violence and human trafficking are rooted in power and control, and that can be seen through intimidation and threats, isolation, physical abuse, emotional abuse and economic abuse, according to those leading the panels. 

Amber Eide, a human trafficking survivor, shared her story and talked about how she found providers who offered her grace and helped her feel safe. 

“We stay because the barriers feel overwhelming,” said Eide, who talked about how it took several attempts before she could leave the abuse.  

Lori Hill, human trafficking coordinator for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, said many trafficking victims were also victims of child abuse, including sexual abuse. She shared information about the state’s human trafficking laws for adults and children and ways to spot signs of trafficking. 

Speakers also emphasized the dangers of domestic violence, noting it can escalate and turn deadly. Allison Bowie, director of the Crime Victim Compensation Program, said there has been an uptick in domestic violence homicides. 

Last year, at least 70 people died in domestic violence incidents, according to records maintained by Missisisppi Today by reviewing local news stories, police and court records and other public information. So far this year, at least 30 people have died. These numbers include victims, abusers, children, law enforcement and others. 

Between 2020 and 2024, over 300 people died in domestic violence incidents. 

To encourage better collaboration, identify earlier chances to intervene and collect better data, the domestic violence coalition supported a bill to create a statewide domestic violence fatality review team, whose work began this year. 

Attendees were asked to reflect on what they learned and implement it in their own work.

Johnson said people made suggestions of topics they would like to see covered at future conferences, including providing services to people experiencing addiction, low-cost legal representation and transportation in rural areas to access services. 

This was the domestic violence coalition’s first statewide conference and there are plans to host more in the future, including combined conferences with the Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the Mississippi Coalition Against Human Trafficking. 

Mina Corpuz with Mississippi Today and Daja E. Henry with The Marshall Project review their deep-dive reporting into suicides in Mississippi’s prisons. Inmates — including those known to pose harm to themselves — are often locked away in solitary confinement without adequate checks on their wellbeing. The reporters looked at a decade’s worth of data and tell harrowing stories through the eyes of family members and inmates. The project was a partnership between Mississippi Today, The Marshall Project and the Clarion Ledger.

Anthony “Tony” Smith filed an appeal Tuesday with the Mississippi Supreme Court of a judge’s ruling that could put his Hinds County supervisor seat in jeopardy.

Smith told Mississippi Today that he had no comment on the matter for the time being, but that a big announcement regarding the matter would come “in the next few days.”

Smith, who is the current District 2 supervisor, filed the appeal in response to a recent ruling that would require Smith to rerun for his seat against David Archie, who was seeking a second term in 2023 and claimed fraud in that year’s Democratic primary.

It is unclear how the appeal may affect the upcoming special election between David Archie and Smith. The election is set for July 14.

Special Judge Barry Ford, who oversaw the case, stated in his ruling on June 3 that there would not be a stay in the election, meaning any stay would have to be granted by the Supreme Court in order to pause the election. Warren Martin, who represents Smith, told Mississippi Today he believes the lengthy appeal process itself will postpone the election. 

“It’s June now. You’re looking at six months left, and then they’re gonna be gearing up for the new election for that seat for 2027,” Martin said. “So he may run out of time, but if he does, there’s nothing we did to delay the process.”

The typical appeals process takes several months. Circuit Clerk Zack Wallace would have to ready the record, then court transcripts from the initial court case would have to be gathered. If the Supreme Court decides to hear the case, it would enter a briefing schedule and both sides would have several weeks to reply to the briefs. 

Ford had stated in his ruling that the process would be expedited, saying, “Everything is on fast track and I’m in control of the track.” However, now that the appeal has been filed primarily it’s up to the Supreme Court to determine how quickly the matter is solved. 

Martin said he believes the court will overturn Ford’s initial ruling as it was “fraught with error.”

“There are so many errors in the final opinion and I don’t think it can’t be helped but to be reminded by reversal,” Martin said. “So, we’ll see what happens.”

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share their ideas about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here.   

Mississippi lawmakers are talking about redistricting again, but this time it’s not legislative districts that are at issue. Both chambers of the Legislature have proposed or are studying potential changes to the state’s school district map through consolidation.

A select committee of the House is looking at the issue. A bill, sponsored by Sen. Education Chair Dennis DeBar during the 2026 session, proposed obtaining information on district size, population, administrative costs and the potential pros and cons of consolidating existing districts.

These are important questions, but they are not the only ones that policymakers should be asking. School system redistricting can achieve much more than efficiency, as New America shows in a recent report, Redrawing the Lines, that features Mississippi. The right boundaries can also be the key to achieving funding fairness and helping Mississippi make good on the promises of its new school funding system.

The Mississippi Student Funding Formula, which passed in 2024 and is in its second year of implementation, is a major achievement. It represents a $200 million increase in support for public schools, and importantly, this investment is targeted to supporting the students and communities that need the most help.

The new formula recognizes the needs of students from low-income backgrounds with a per-pupil funding boost of 30%, up from a paltry 5% under the old system. It also systematically supports English learners for the first time, with a 15% funding bump, where before, Mississippi was one of only two states without specific funding for these students.

And the formula now meaningfully addresses community-level cost-drivers, including sparsity and concentrated poverty.

These are big wins on both the size of Mississippi’s school funding pie and the method for dividing it. The formula strongly signals the state’s priorities of ensuring that kids with all kinds of needs have access to a quality public education.

But ill-placed school district borders will undermine these goals. Conversely, the right district map can make sure that the state is able to make good on the formula’s promises.

How so?

A school district boundary outlines the school system: the neighborhoods from which local kids can go to district schools. But it also defines the area whose property taxes will support those schools. This makes the district boundary a powerful and underused tool of school funding policy.

If Mississippi lawmakers intentionally draw school district boundaries to encompass more neighborhoods with more equal property values, they can ensure that kids in every community receive a fairly funded education.

As an example, take the Yazoo City Municipal School District, which is surrounded on all sides by the Yazoo County School District. The child poverty rate in Yazoo City is a very high 57%. In Yazoo County, 37% of children live in poverty.

Despite the city district’s higher-need population, it has less money to spend. Between state and local dollars, Yazoo City had just over $11,700 per pupil last year, while Yazoo County had more than $15,300. Why the disparity, in the first year of a new funding system meant to give higher-need districts more funds?

It’s not because the new formula isn’t working. It’s because Yazoo County has more local dollars. The formula does indeed allot Yazoo City more state funding, about $8,790 per pupil to Yazoo County’s $6,490. But then come the property tax revenues.

The two districts have nearly identical tax rates at 51.25 and 51.3 mills, respectively, so the city residents are trying just as hard to support public schools. But Yazoo County has the advantage of much higher property values – an especially big advantage given Mississippi’s “27% rule,” which favors wealthy districts with a cap on the amount of local dollars that can be counted against a district’s state education aid.

Once local property tax dollars come in, the county is able to raise far more money per pupil, swamping the state’s efforts at matching funding to student needs. Even with the new formula, Yazoo City students wind up on the losing end, yet again.

It would be astronomically costly to cover the gap with more state funds. But what if Yazoo County School District’s local dollars weren’t fenced off by an ill-placed school district border? What if every kid attending schools within county limits – even those living within Yazoo City itself – got a fair share of its property tax revenues? And what if all schoolkids throughout Mississippi had access to their fair share of the state’s property wealth?

Our New America report shows that if Mississippi adopted a fully county-based school district map – no multi-district counties or carve-outs like the one for Yazoo City – the state would reduce these ground-level inequalities in per-student property wealth by 18.5%.

If lawmakers mandated a more extensive set of consolidations, chosen not only for their efficiency but also for their fairness, Mississippi’s school districts could reduce ground-level tax-base inequality by 57.5%.

We also model an alternative map, drawn from scratch to maximize gains instead of starting from current boundaries, that could improve tax-base equality between districts by an astonishing 81.6%. With the right district lines, it is absolutely possible to give Mississippi kids their fair share of local funding.

Mississippi has invested so much in its kids’ education, but too much of that investment is falling through the cracks between unequal school districts. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Through school system redistricting, the state can make good on the Mississippi Student Funding Formula promise of getting the most education dollars to the kids and communities that are most in need of support.

The Legislature is already talking about it. Let’s make sure they’re having the right kind of redistricting conversation, one that considers not just efficiency, but also ensuring that the state’s school funding system can meet the needs of kids and communities.

Zahava Stadler is project director of the Education Funding Equity initiative at New America. Her work focuses on the policies that govern how school funding is raised and distributed, and how those policies affect the equity of the public education system. Before joining New America, Stadler worked on state school funding policy at The Education Trust. Previously, Stadler served as director of policy at EdBuild, which advised Mississippi lawmakers on an earlier attempt to revise the school funding system.

Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas rank among the lowest in the country on child well-being, according to the latest KIDS COUNT Data Book released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Advocates across all three states said the path forward requires not just good policy, but the political will to fund it.

Deep South Today on Monday convened a virtual forum, which was sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, to examine what the 2026 data reveals about children in the region. It was the first in a planned series of events called Families Count in the Deep South.

Leslie Boissiere, vice president of external affairs at the foundation, walked attendees through the latest data book, which pulled together outcomes across dozens of data points to create overall state rankings. Mississippi ranked 50th in the country, Louisiana ranked 48th, and Arkansas ranked 43rd.

The picture is more complicated than the rankings alone suggest. Despite their low overall standings, Mississippi and Louisiana improved in overall well-being year-over-year. Boissiere credited state-level literacy legislation in both states for the gains.

“When leaders invest in policies that support children, children do well,” she said.

On the ground, advocates said the data largely matched what they see daily. Keesa Smith-Brantley, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, tied the state’s declining rankings directly to more than a decade of tax cuts she said have stripped over $2.5 billion from state general revenue.

“Putting it just as bluntly as I can, it won’t happen for free,” Smith-Brantley said of the investments needed to reverse course. “We have to have not just the will but the dollars behind it to see change.”

Ashley Parker Shiels, CEO of the Children’s Foundation of Mississippi, celebrated the Magnolia State’s education gains while urging against complacency. She noted that 51% of Mississippi children ages 3 and 4 are not in any early childhood education setting, and that the state still ranks last in the country on health indicators. She also flagged that Mississippi’s average teacher pay remains the lowest in the nation.

“Two things can be true,” she said. “We can celebrate the success and it is real and powerful to see the progress … and we also have to acknowledge there’s more work to do and we can’t rest easy on the fact that there’s been improvement. If anything, that has to motivate us to continue this in the other sectors.” 

In Louisiana, Teresa Falgoust, chief data and impact officer at Agenda for Children, said solutions for reducing child poverty are already known. She pointed to the federally expanded child tax credit during the pandemic, which drove child poverty to historic lows before expiring. The challenge, she said, is less about finding solutions than sustaining the political will to fund them.

“There’s no better way to spend a dollar than on children and families,” Falgoust said. “That is literally the future of our country and the future of our state.”

All three panelists expressed concern about the potential impact of federal cuts to Medicaid and SNAP and shared specific ideas for what policy changes would improve child well-being outcomes if adopted.

Deep South Today’s network includes Mississippi Today, Verite News, The Current, and the forthcoming Arkansas Today. In-person Families Count convenings are planned in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas later this year.

Watch the entire virtual conversation:

Mississippi’s Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council has selected the Denver-based health consulting firm Steadman Group to advise the committee’s grant application process for the upcoming cycle.

A state law passed in April instructed the council to contract with a third-party agency to help run its opioid settlement grant review process. Lawmakers appropriated $400,000 to Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office for the contract.

Dr. JK Costello, Steadman’s behavioral health and consulting director, told Mississippi Today he expects the work in Mississippi to cost about $350,000. He said both the Attorney General’s Office and Steadman have the option of renewing the contract after this year, if the Legislature provides funding for it again. 

Steadman has contracted with South Dakota and Oklahoma to help those states manage opioid settlement dollars, and Costello said the organization has also worked with over 40 counties nationwide to help spend funds. He said he’s seen governments make thoughtful addiction response decisions, as well as short-sighted choices. 

“We’ve pretty much seen it all at this point,” said Costello, who is in addiction recovery himself. “There’ll always be something different, but I think it’s just been so helpful to have seen it before and dealt with it before.”

Mississippi started receiving payments from national opioid lawsuits in 2022, and those payments are expected to total $430 million by 2040. The settlements require Mississippi to spend about $300 million of that money to prevent future overdoses, and state lawmakers and Fitch allow the remainder to be spent on any public purpose. 

In spring 2025, after every other state had started spending settlement money on addressing addiction, Mississippi lawmakers passed a bill to create an opioid advisory council that oversees the $300 million portion. They tasked the council with creating a grant application for overdose prevention projects, reviewing all the responses and recommending which applications the Legislature should fund — all in around five months.

The council struggled to keep up with this tight timeline. Key instructions for organizations were initially missing from drafted documents, some council members publicly advocated for organizations they were affiliated with and application scores between subcommittees varied drastically. 

Citing these issues at the council’s last 2025 meeting, James Moore, a Hattiesburg recovery advocate and council member, called on the organization to look into outside help. Fitch, the council’s chair, praised lawmakers for passing the bill that instructed the council to contract with a group that could provide this help.

MaryAsa Lee, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, said Steadman was one of three applications the council received. She said Moore and Department of Mental Health Executive Director Wendy Bailey helped the office review the applications. 

The 2026 law says the third-party group will be responsible for administering an online application portal, providing technical assistance to applicants, creating methods for standardized scoring and evaluating the work organizations do with awarded settlement funds. 

Costello said Steadman expects to fulfill all these requirements, and it aims to build a more comprehensive opioid settlement online monitoring system in subsequent years.

“In year two, we’re hoping to move everything into this one-stop-shop,” he said. 

Costello said in his talks with the Mississippi Attorney General’s office, people raised issues with the grant proposal scoring discrepancy between different advisory council subcommittees. Steadman aims to address these issues with grade training before council members score applications, and statistical standardization adjustments after the applications have been assessed. 

The new law still assigns the advisory council with making the final state opioid settlement recommendations, and the Legislature decides which recommendations to approve or reject. It furthered lawmakers’ decision power over these funds, allowing them to change the amounts of money each applicant receives.

In a controversial move, the Legislature took broader authority than some advisory council members thought it would in deciding how the state would award its first opioid settlement dollars. When that happened, Moore said he worried whether the Legislature would listen to the advice of a third-party group. 

Costello said Steadman will accept however the Legislature chooses to consider his organization’s work. He said throughout the year, he will try to keep everyone involved with Mississippi’s opioid settlement distribution informed.

“Ultimately, we’ll deal with that when we come to it,” he said. 

Editor’s Note: Siegler will be a speaker at the 2026 National Opioid Settlement Conference, which is hosted by Steadman Group. Neither he nor Mississippi Today received compensation for this appearance.