OurTupelo

The Senate granted the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina federal recognition on Wednesday.

Dozens of members of the tribe, which has been pushing for recognition for more than a century, watched from the Senate gallery as the chamber passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which included the measure, by a vote of 77-20. The House passed the legislation last week, so it will now head to the president’s desk for his signature.

The issue had held up President Donald Trump’s federal judicial nominations for Mississippi for months.

The provision recognizing the Lumbee was supported by Trump, who signed an executive order to advance the tribe’s recognition in January. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, said passing it is the most memorable part of his Senate career.

“We’re literally repealing law that was passed by racist members of this institution in 1958 that made it impossible for (the Lumbee) to get recognized through the administration,” Tillis, who is retiring next year, told NOTUS. “We’re going further by saying they are federally recognized, and they deserve it, and God bless them for being so patient. I would not have been.”

The Lumbee Fairness Act is buried more than 3,000 pages deep in the NDAA for fiscal year 2026. The provision federally recognizes the 55,000-member tribe — which previously only had state-level recognition — and provides the path for Lumbee tribal members to access federal benefits for Native Americans. It also designates several counties in North Carolina as being on or near an Indian reservation: Robeson, Cumberland, Hoke and Scotland.

“There’s been a lot of people who’ve worked on this, and we’re just striving to this point and wanting to see this take place, and I’m just overwhelmed. I’m full of joy. Our people are happy, a lot of tears right now, and we’re thrilled,” John L. Lowery, the chair of the Lumbee Tribe, told NOTUS.

“I just want to thank everybody who’s helped us get here — Sen. Tillis, many others. And I want to thank our ancestors. Our ancestors started this. They saw a vision a long time ago. Thank God we’ve been able to see it fulfilled,” he added.

Sounds of sniffling filled the hallways outside the Senate chamber as Tillis led members of the tribe down the stairs from the gallery after the vote. Some members were crying, some shared hugs.

Tillis has been at the forefront of efforts to get the tribe recognized through congressional action over the past two years, including sponsoring a standalone Senate bill and trying to block Mississippi judicial nominees in an effort to persuade Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker to put the tribe’s recognition in the NDAA.

Trump and his administration have been enthusiastic about recognizing the Lumbee Tribe. Vice President JD Vance joined as a co-sponsor of Tillis’ bill to recognize the tribe in September 2024. While Trump had signed a related executive order, the tribe couldn’t be recognized by an executive order alone, but it could be through an act of Congress.

“I love the Lumbee tribe,” Trump said before signing the executive order. “This is their first big step, right? They were with me all the way. They were great, North Carolina.”

The tribe resides in one of the swingiest states in the nation, which Trump won in the 2024 election by about three percentage points. North Carolina’s other senator, Sen. Ted Budd, has worked with Tillis on legislation to get the tribe recognized.

“I’m very, very pleased at the result,” Budd told NOTUS.

On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump traveled to Robeson County and pledged his support to the Lumbee’s recognition.

“I heard that, and I pursued that, and the president is fulfilling his promise when he signs this into law tomorrow afternoon,” Tillis said. “We’ve had a lot of people go down there. We had Biden go down there. We had people in the Obama administration go down. When they were controlling all of Washington, they didn’t deliver. This president is the reason why we were able to get the environment to get this done.”

Tillis said that the White House counsel, along with the director of legislative affairs, James Braid, was influential in getting the legislation across the finish line.

“We’ve had dust-ups from time to time, but we were all moving like a well-oiled machine,” Tillis said. “It’s been decades that [the Lumbee have] been trying to do it here, let alone a century that they’ve attempted it before they got the ear of some members of Congress.”

Though Tillis is close with the tribe now, and often wears a bolo tie to Senate votes that members of the tribe made and gifted to him, he was not always supportive of the tribe’s recognition, he said.

“I was, I think, the first member of the Senate in modern times that refused to co-sponsor the Lumbee recognition bill in my first Congress because … I’ve got to be convinced you’ve got a case before I’m willing to do it,” Tillis said. “I spent the time, I understood what they were going through — embarrassed that I didn’t really know that history well — and then committed to them.”

This story is provided by a partnership between Mississippi Today and the NOTUS Washington Bureau Initiative, which seeks to help readers in local communities understand what their elected representatives are doing in Congress.

Mississippi prisoners were likely left without adequate dental care for months as the state’s private prison health care contractor failed to meet staffing requirements and the Department of Corrections failed to document the problem, according to a new legislative watchdog report.

In a report published on Friday, the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance, Evaluation and Expenditure Review, or PEER, found staffing shortages overseen by VitalCore Health Strategies, the Kansas-based private company that receives hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to provide medical care in Mississippi’s prisons under a contract with the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

The report, which focuses on dental care in nursing homes and prisons, also found that the Department of Corrections, beyond looking at staffing levels, could not produce any documentation showing it was monitoring VitalCore’s compliance with the lucrative contract awarded to the company. The findings suggest that Mississippi prisoners have been put in harm’s way by the government entities in charge of their care.

“The lack of monitoring lowers MDOC’s ability to hold VitalCore accountable for providing services and increases the possibility for inmates to receive insufficient care,” the report said.

The combination of shortcomings increased the risk of untreated medical needs and limited Mississippi’s ability to hold its contractor accountable, even as MDOC sought millions of dollars in financial penalties for staffing shortfalls — all of which has been previously reported by Mississippi Today.

Friday’s report follows numerous installments in Mississippi Today’s Behind Bars, Beyond Care series, which has documented alleged routine denial of health care in state prisons. The series includes reports of potentially thousands of people living with hepatitis C going without treatment, an untreated broken arm that resulted in amputation and delayed cancer screenings. The series has also provided an inside view of discontent among high-ranking officials inside the prison system, with one ex-corrections official turning over private communications between former colleagues showing them lamenting the quality of care provided by VitalCore.

The watchdog report also reveals the department is in the process of finalizing a contract through the Mississippi State Personnel Board to hire an external contract monitor to assist with keeping tabs on VitalCore. This means that MDOC plans to outsource its role in ensuring VitalCore provides the care it’s paid to provide.

The report said MDOC reviewed the findings and elected not to provide a formal response. Spokespeople for MDOC and VitalCore did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mississippi Today about specific findings in the report.

Those findings included the revelation that VitalCore’s staffing hours for dental professionals fell below contractual requirements every month from January to June 2025, with unfilled hours ranging from 31% to 57%. Dental directors filled only 43% of required hours, dentists 59%, and dental assistants 69%—all below contract standards.

These staffing shortages “decrease the likelihood of high quality dental care for inmates and increase the likelihood of overworking the dental professionals on staff,” the report said.

VitalCore blamed the unfilled staffing hours on employee “paid time off, sick time, military leave, staffing vacancies, and statewide dental professional shortages.” The company also claims there has been no reduction in dental services or any delay in providing care. But the legislative watchdog said the high percentages of unfilled staffing hours for dental professionals put “the contractor’s ability to provide quality dental care for inmates in question.”

The shortages have likely multiplied the workload for the current dental staff, the report added.

The watchdog also confirmed a Mississippi Today report from May, which revealed that MDOC requested over $4 million in paybacks from VitalCore due to staffing shortages. The agency requested back $500,000 specifically due to a shortage of dental professionals.

MDOC seeks money back from VitalCore if the required number of staffing hours falls below 90% for physicians, dentists, psychologists, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants and below 85% for all other staff positions.

But other than monitoring VitalCore’s staffing levels, MDOC could not provide the watchdog with any documentation showing it was holding VitalCore accountable for potential failures to meet the terms of its contract.

The report found insufficient, inconsistent, mislabeled and missing data in VitalCore’s dental care records, which leaves oversight officials in the dark about whether prisoners are getting the dental care they need.

For example, dental sick call data was stored in a PDF format that wasn’t suitable for analysis, requiring manual counting and increasing the risk of error, the report said. Dental records were sometimes missing from patient charts, despite MDOC policy requiring such classification.

While the report acknowledges that Mississippi prisons have done enough to maintain accreditation, the lack of oversight “casts uncertainty on the quality of dental care VitalCore is providing to inmates and the internal mechanisms VitalCore utilizes to ensure quality.”

Mientras inmigrantes en el sureste de Louisiana y Mississippi se preparaban para una operación del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional en diciembre, Cristiane Rosales-Fajardo recibió una llamada desesperada de una amiga.

La inquilina guatemalteca de su amiga, quien no sabía que estaba embarazada, acababa de dar a luz a un bebé prematuro en una casa en Nueva Orleans. Los padres no tenían residencia legal, y la madre se negó a ir al hospital por miedo a ser detenida por agentes de inmigración federales.

“Hay sangre por todos lados, y el bebé está muerto”, recuerda Rosales-Fajardo que le dijo su amiga.

Rosales-Fajardo se puso las sandalias, agarró guantes quirúrgicos y corrió hacia la casa.

Inmigrante de Brasil, Rosales-Fajardo es organizadora comunitaria en Nueva Orleans Este, que concentra una gran comunidad inmigrante. No tiene formación médica formal, pero tiene experiencia asistiendo partos.

Al llegar, observó la habitación. Un niño de 3 años estaba de pie a un lado mientras la madre se sentaba al borde de la cama. El padre sostenía a su hijo recién nacido envuelto en toallas empapadas de sangre; el bebé no respiraba.

“El bebé estaba completamente gris”, dijo después Rosales-Fajardo.

Le limpió la boca y le frotó la espalda antes de hacerle pequeñas compresiones en el pecho y darle respiración boca a boca.

Le dijo a los padres que debía llamar al 911 para que la madre y el bebé recibieran atención en un hospital. El bebé ya había nacido, pero el parto aún no había terminado.

“Le aseguré que iba a estar a salvo, se lo prometí”, dijo Rosales-Fajardo.

El miedo se sentía en la habitación. Aun así, hizo la llamada y continuó con la reanimación. Finalmente, el bebé reaccionó y se movió en brazos de Rosales-Fajardo. Cuando llegó la ambulancia, la madre intentó evitar que su esposo la acompañara, aterrada de que arrestaran a ambos. Él fue de todos modos.

Poniendo la seguridad sobre la salud

“Estas son personas trabajadoras”, dijo Rosales-Fajardo. “Todo lo que hacen es trabajar para mantener a su familia. Pero estuvieron a punto de perder a su hijo por no llamar al 911”.

A casi dos semanas de iniciada la operación del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS, por sus siglas en inglés) llamada Catahoula Crunch, que comenzó el 3 de diciembre, profesionales de salud y defensores comunitarios en Louisiana y Mississippi reportan un aumento inusual de pacientes inmigrantes que se han salteado citas médicas y muestran altos niveles de estrés.

Según un comunicado de prensa, el DHS había arrestado a más de 250 personas hasta el 11 de diciembre. Aunque las autoridades federales aseguran que están enfocadas en detener a personas con antecedentes penales, la agencia Associated Press (AP) informó que la mayoría de las 38 personas detenidas en los primeros dos días del operativo en Nueva Orleans no tenían historial criminal.

Desde que el presidente Donald Trump asumió el cargo en enero, las familias inmigrantes en todo el país son más proclives a evitar o posponer la atención médica, en parte por preocupaciones relacionadas con su estatus migratorio, según una encuesta reciente de KFF y The New York Times.

La encuesta reveló que casi 8 de cada 10 inmigrantes que probablemente estén viviendo en Estados Unidos sin autorización legal dijeron haber experimentado efectos negativos en su salud este año, desde ansiedad y problemas de sueño hasta el empeoramiento de afecciones como presión arterial alta o diabetes.

Las redadas migratorias federales en California, Illinois, Carolina del Norte y ahora en Louisiana y Mississippi agravan las dificultades que estas familias ya enfrentan, como el acceso limitado a servicios, barreras lingüísticas, falta de seguro médico y altos costos.

Esa renuencia a recibir atención, incluso en casos de emergencia, parece justificada en medio de las redadas.

Según la Unión Estadounidense de Libertades Civiles (ACLU, por sus siglas en inglés), los hospitales y centros de salud generalmente deben permitir el acceso de agentes federales a las áreas abiertas al público. En California, este año, agentes federales se han apostado  en salas de espera de hospitales, se han presentado en clínicas comunitarias y han custodiado a personas detenidas en habitaciones de hospital.

Incluso ir o volver de una cita médica implica un riesgo, ya que las detenciones durante controles de tránsito son una práctica común de los agentes de migración.

La enfermera Terry Mogilles, del University Medical Center (UMC), dijo que los inmigrantes suelen representar al menos la mitad de los pacientes en su clínica de traumatología ortopédica en Nueva Orleans, muchos con lesiones graves relacionadas con el trabajo en la construcción que requieren cirugía. Pero ahora, Mogilles dijo que muchos de esos pacientes no van a sus citas de seguimiento, a pesar del riesgo de infecciones.

“Llamamos y no logramos comunicarnos”, dijo Mogilles. “Es muy angustiante porque no sabemos qué les está pasando después de la operación”.

El miedo se extiende en el sur

Las autoridades federales informaron que la operación Catahoula Crunch también se lleva a cabo en el sur de Mississippi, aunque la mayoría de los arrestos iniciales ocurrieron en el área metropolitana de Nueva Orleans. Las familias inmigrantes en todo Mississippi se están preparando para lo que se avecina.

Michael Oropeza, director ejecutivo de la organización El Pueblo, que presta servicios a comunidades inmigrantes de bajos ingresos en Biloxi y Forest, dijo que han visto a familias postergar atención médica, cancelar chequeos infantiles y dejar de surtir recetas.

“No es que no valoren su salud; es que no se sienten seguros”, afirmó Oropeza. “Cuando los hospitales y clínicas dejan de ser un lugar seguro, se pierde la confianza que tomó años construir. Puede desaparecer de la noche a la mañana”.

María, una residente de Biloxi originaria de Honduras, contó en español que ella y sus dos hijos han perdido citas médicas rutinarias porque están “aterrados” de salir de casa ante el aumento de la presencia de agentes federales de migración. Su esposo, quien tiene autorización para trabajar en Estados Unidos, fue detenido durante dos meses este año.

Sus hijos son ciudadanos estadounidenses. Antes tenían cobertura de Medicaid, pero María decidió darlos de baja hace tres años por miedo a que el uso de beneficios públicos afectara las solicitudes de residencia de su familia. Ahora pagan la atención médica de sus hijos de su propio bolsillo.

Cuando se sientan seguros de volver a salir, María dijo que su prioridad será buscar atención en salud mental para abordar el estrés que ha vivido su familia.

“Yo necesito visitar un médico definitivamente para que me chequee porque no me siento bien”, dijo, al describir su ansiedad, depresión e insomnio.

En Louisiana, Marcela Hernández, de Familias Unidas en Acción, una organización sin fines de lucro que brinda ayuda directa a inmigrantes, dijo que muchas de las familias con las que trabaja viven al día. Refugiarse en casa y perder días de trabajo solo aumenta el estrés. Hernández contó que recibió 800 llamadas pidiendo comida en solo dos días, de familias que tenían miedo de salir a la calle.

Según la agencia AP, la operación federal en Louisiana y Mississippi podría extenderse por más de dos meses. Cuanto más se prolongue, más teme Hernández que comience a haber desalojos, ya que las personas no podrán pagar el alquiler, lo que traumatizaría aún más a una comunidad que a menudo ha tenido que emprender viajes peligrosos para llegar a Estados Unidos, huyendo de situaciones difíciles en sus países de origen.

“No abandonas tu país sabiendo que vas a ser violada en el camino solo porque quieres venir a conocer a Mickey Mouse”, dijo.

Rosales-Fajardo, quien dirige una organización sin fines de lucro llamada El Pueblo NOLA, comentó que muchas familias le cuentan que sus hijos han comenzado a hacerse pis encima por el miedo y el estrés.

A nivel nacional, inmigrantes en situación migratoria irregular han reportado que algunos de sus hijos tienen problemas para dormir o cambios en el rendimiento escolar o en su conducta, según la encuesta de KFF y The New York Times.

Grupos comunitarios esperan que personas de la comunidad se movilicen para llevar alimentos y productos de higiene a los hogares de inmigrantes, y que profesionales de salud ofrezcan más visitas domiciliarias o por telemedicina.

Como en otros hospitales, las salas de espera del UMC son consideradas espacios públicos, explicó Mogilles. Pero el sindicato de enfermeras pide que el hospital establezca áreas seguras a las que los agentes federales no tengan acceso y políticas claras para proteger al personal de salud que a su vez cuida a los pacientes.

Las citas postoperatorias no pueden realizarse de forma virtual, por lo que los pacientes necesitan sentirse lo suficientemente seguros para venir, explicó Mogilles.

El cuidado prenatal y postnatal también es difícil de ofrecer de forma virtual, lo que pone en riesgo la salud de embarazadas o mujeres que han parido recientemente, explicó Latona Giwa, directora ejecutiva de Repro TLC, una organización nacional de capacitación en salud sexual y reproductiva.

Desde que comenzaron las redadas en Chicago en septiembre, Giwa dijo que las clínicas y proveedores con los que trabaja reportaron que el 30% de sus pacientes no habían ido a sus citas médicas. Las farmacias reportaron una caída del 40% en la recolección de medicamentos.

“Sabemos que en el manejo de afecciones crónicas, especialmente durante el embarazo, pero también en general, incluso faltar a una sola cita puede afectar el desarrollo de la afección y empeorar los resultados del paciente”, dijo Giwa.

En Louisiana, donde los resultados de salud materna ya son deficientes, el temor al arresto podría agravar una crisis que ya se intensificó con la anulación de Roe v. Wade y poner vidas en riesgo. Giwa está especialmente preocupada por las familias con bebés prematuros en la unidad de cuidados intensivos neonatales (NICU, por sus siglas en inglés).

“Imagínate que tu bebé está en el hospital, tan vulnerable, y tú tienes miedo de ir a verlo y cuidarlo porque temes ser deportada”, dijo, señalando que la salud de un recién nacido depende en parte de la presencia de sus padres.

Esa es la situación que enfrenta la familia guatemalteca en Nueva Orleans.

En un día reciente de diciembre, Rosales-Fajardo actuó como traductora y defensora de la familia durante su primera visita para ver a su hijo en la NICU, en un hospital en la zona norte del lago Pontchartrain. El personal les dijo a los padres que necesitarían hacer ese viaje largo y riesgoso varias veces durante al menos un mes, para brindar contacto piel con piel y leche materna.

Rosales-Fajardo condujo a los padres, quienes tenían miedo de cruzar el puente por su cuenta por temor a ser detenidos. Dijo que seguirá llevándolos las veces que sea necesario.

“Cuando ven a alguien hispano manejando o algo así, ya les parece sospechoso”, dijo sobre los agentes federales.

Pero el bebé está a salvo y saludable. Y los padres nombraron a Rosales-Fajardo como su madrina.

Gwen Dilworth de Mississippi Today y Christiana Botic de Verite News colaboraron con este artículo.

BOONEVILLE — Walking through a parking lot at Northeast Mississippi Community College on a November afternoon, Nickeda Shelton was eager to get to her job as one of the school’s student counselors. 

She loves working at the Booneville campus, enough so that she drives around 60 miles round trip every day from her home in Tupelo. It was an exciting change after roughly two decades of work in a K-12 setting. 

Amid the rising costs of colleges across the country, Shelton said the school has done a good job of keeping tuition relatively affordable for people who live nearby. 

“It’s calm, it’s relaxing and you can always find family,” she said. 

But the school isn’t immune to some of the resource scarcity that’s common for public services in northeast Mississippi. Shelton sometimes struggles to meet the health needs of all students — especially as rates of anxiety and depression have climbed among college students across North America since the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Years later, Shelton and her coworkers do what they can to help all who struggle with their mental health. But Northeast has over 3,000 students, and some still fall through the gaps.

“It’s kind of been all over the place,” she said, adding that more staff could help address these needs. 

Northeast Mississippians said this type of mismatch between resources and services that would help locals and what’s available close to them is common in their corner of the state. In one of the most remote regions of Mississippi, people across Prentiss and Alcorn County told Mississippi Today that they, their families and their friends would benefit from more resource support from their local governments and the state.

From Jackson, it takes at least 3.5 hours of law-abiding driving on the 50 miles-per-hour speed limit Natchez Trace Parkway to get to Booneville. Shelton said she thinks transportation and distance factor into the gap between people’s needs and the opportunities available to them.

“It’s kind of off the beaten path,” she said. “And because of that, sometimes we get left out because we are so far up north.” 

It’s not just the college that could use more resource support. Jennifer Kendrick, a Booneville mother of two, sends her children to the local public schools. She attended the same schools when she was a kid, playing the bassoon at football games and competitions for the Booneville High School marching band. 

Her freshman son plays the trombone for the same team, and her daughter plays the trombone for the feeder middle school.

“Booneville has for decades had an amazing band,” Kendrick said.

But there are other extracurriculars the schools don’t have that she sees offered elsewhere in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. Prentiss County is split into three separate school districts — allowed by Mississippi’s laws around county and municipal school districts — and Kendrick worries that splitting up her rural county this way means no high school can offer all the opportunities others do.  

Booneville High School doesn’t have a debate team, a theater club or a choir — all extracurriculars Kendrick would like her kids to have the option of exploring. When she was in school in the 1990s, she was part of a program no longer offered called Future Problem Solving, a club that invited kids to think of solutions to large problems like drunken driving. It then asked the students to work through the problems of those proposed solutions. 

“I would love for my kids to be involved in it,” she said. 

In addition to building relationships and community with other high schoolers, Kendrick said these clubs offered potential pathways to paying for college. The 2023 per capita income of Prentiss County was under $40,000 — about $10,000 less than that of Mississippi as a whole.

Without scholarships, like those awarded for a skill that could be developed through an extracurricular activity, she said she won’t be able to pay for her kids’ college tuition. It’s just too expensive, especially as she expects her health insurance premium to go up next month. 

“We’ve already discussed, ‘You need to be looking for ways you can get scholarships,’” she said.

The resource gaps of local schools could have repercussions into adulthood. While exploring the W.M. Browning Cretaceous Fossil Park in Baldwyn, Emmy Nelson and Joanna Bishop interact with people from across north Mississippi through their work as traveling New Testament ministers. While they don’t work directly with the schools in the area, Nelson said she meets with many adults who likely should have received special education for dyslexia. 

Through their travels, Bishop also notices that there’s a gap between the level of unaddressed trauma among people she meets with and available mental health services for those needs, often using substances to cope with issues.

“When you never deal with the problem and it’s still reoccurring, then it doesn’t solve anything,” she said.  

Twenty miles north in Corinth, Heather Hurt sees that service gap in her own life. She filed a domestic violence protection order recently, and she said she hasn’t been able to find a support group in the area for victims of the crime. 

S.A.F.E. Inc., a domestic violence shelter 50 miles south in Tupelo, serves Alcorn County and offers support groups once a week. But although there are virtual video call options for the meetings, they’re held in -person two counties south of Hurt’s home. 

“Sometimes, it would be nice to just have other women that you could go and listen to and talk to,” she said. 

Not knowing where to find or being able to get social services is a problem Hurt says affects the most financially and medically vulnerable Alcorn County residents. And the problems aren’t limited to long-term programs. Hurt works as a paramedic in Tennessee, and she said she’s experienced difficulty getting first responders on her side of the state line to show up in a timely manner. 

While Hurt thinks Corinth is a great place to live, she would like to see her state representatives work to address these resource gaps. So far, she said she hasn’t seen them in the community nor had a chance to tell them that.

“I don’t ever hear of them coming up here,” she said.

Even with the public service access challenges, Kendrick said small businesses in the area work to fill some of the communities’ needs. She has her own private therapy practice in Booneville, and she’s worked with other groups in the area to address community needs herself. 

In September, Kendrick and a local gym partnered to host a free class on domestic violence, where she said she shared information about recognizing the signs of abuse and exiting an unsafe situation. Although only a few people attended, she said those who did were very engaged in the discussion.

“We ended up partnering and supporting and promoting each other,” Kendrick said. Hurt hadn’t heard of the class, but she said it would have interested her.

The small business relationships in Booneville is one of the things Kendrick loves about her hometown, which she returned to after attending college in Memphis. She sees many residents making decisions with her and her neighbors in mind, not out-of-state stakeholders. 

“There’s less of a buffer.”

Victoria Love, the city of Jackson’s rental registration manager, scrunched her eyebrows together into a deep line, mimicking the confused expression she said Mayor John Horhn made the first time she introduced herself to him in 2024. He was a state senator at the time.

“I’m giving him my card, and he just pauses and looks at me and is like, ‘Rental registration? What is it that you do besides getting the rentals to register?’” Love said.

Love, in fact, does a lot more than registration. The former property manager sends inspectors out to properties, she collects and crunches data on Jackson’s landlords, and she works with rental owners to help them maintain safe, habitable units. 

Now, three years after a lawsuit from metro-area landlords and an industry organization called the Mississippi Apartment Association impeded the city’s implementation of its rental registration program, Love will finally be able to collect fees to fund routine inspections. 

The new age for rental regulation in Jackson comes after the city council passed an amended version of its rental registration ordinance earlier this month to incorporate court-mandated changes. These include lowering fees and eliminating a provision aimed at absent and out-of-state owners that required anyone operating rentals in Jackson to have a local agent residing in city limits. 

City officials hope the new registry will help inspectors identify and sanction bad-acting landlords, bringing some regulation to a rental market that has operated virtually unchecked for years. Under the ordinance, property owners who fail to register on time or whose units cannot pass inspection will face stiff fines. 

“So it’s not just the wild, wild west,” Ward 7 councilman Kevin Parkinson said. 

But whether the program will foster better living conditions for Jackson’s renters hinges on the city’s dedication to code enforcement, said Lynda Troyer, a local landlord who has rented property near the Jackson Zoo for more than a decade. 

When she first started working in Jackson, Troyer said the city had the authority under a 2006 ordinance to inspect properties during what’s called the “turnover” period when one tenant leaves and another has yet to move in. 

Lacking an adequate number of inspectors, the city struggled to show up to her units in a timely fashion, Troyer said, delaying tenants from getting in the door. 

“Nobody complied with it,” she said. “There were no real penalties for not complying and …. when the city couldn’t do timely inspections, landlords just quit asking for them.” 

The solution to a problem as complex as poor housing conditions in Jackson is repeated follow-up, Love said. The program has five inspectors and Love said she doesn’t expect to be able to hire more amid the city’s financial woes. But her ability to collect fees from landlords will go a long way to ensuring the program is self-sufficient. 

“You can expect true dedication to looking at the issue, going out and inspecting it,” she said. 

The new rental registry does away with inspections during the turnover period, instead requiring the city to conduct property reviews upon an owner renewing their annual registration. 

For smaller landlords, Love said the city will strive to inspect 20% of a landlord’s portfolio. Landlords with multi-family apartment complexes will have no more than 20% of their units inspected. If an inspector does not identify issues in the first 10% of units, the ordinance states they will have the option to declare the landlord compliant without inspecting the rest. 

To cover the cost of inspection, the city will charge landlords $50 for each single-family home examined and $25 for each unit in an apartment complex. 

In the newest version of the program, the city calculated these fees so that inspections were not generating revenue, which would constitute an “impermissible tax.” This is one of the arguments Troyer and other landlords made in their legal challenge against the original ordinance.

The Mississippi Apartment Association was not able to participate in an interview by press time but shared a letter of support for the new ordinance that it sent to the council. 

“The final ordinance reflects an approach that enables the City to meet its important rental housing goals while being mindful of the existing demands on property owners,” wrote Meghan Elder, the association’s executive. 

Earlier this year, a Hinds County Circuit Court judge ruled the city could not enforce the fees until it had determined how much it will actually take to run the rental registry program, the Northside Sun reported. 

Parkinson said he believes the fees might have to go up after a year of the city actually running the program. 

“Now, I suspect it’s going to be nowhere near the cost” of the program, Parkinson said. “But because we’ve never operated before, we don’t have any proof that’s the case.” 

Love has ambitious goals for the program: She’s working to set up a complaint form that tenants can use to contact the city after their landlord has failed to address their concerns, and she envisions educational classes for owners who don’t know city code. 

“You have 80-year-old women who it’s been their lifelong dream to rent a property,” she said. “They have these two rental properties and they really don’t know … you have to have a smoke detector in every bedroom.” 

Love also hopes the rental registry will help beget data on which landlords own the most challenged apartment complexes. She said her office regularly scrapes Zillow and monitors Facebook Marketplace to try to catch landlords who have failed to register. And she wants to tackle some of the city’s long-troubled apartment complexes, such as Pine Ridge Gardens, a Section 8 complex in southeast Jackson. 

While the city program’s inspectors will prioritize rentals that are not already examined through state and federal affordable housing programs, the city can inspect apartments if the rental division has “reasonable information and belief” of poor living conditions, according to the ordinance. 

Love said the city can kick off this process once it gets word that a complex has failed its federal or state inspection. In a situation where a complex has been a 30-year problem, Love said she thinks it’s unrealistic to expect a landlord to improve a property within their first year of ownership – especially when some out-of-state landlords are buying complexes sight unseen. 

“This just isn’t really the market for that,” she said. “You have to have someone here.” 

But as soon as a landlord fails their first inspection, or if enough Jacksonians complain, Love said it’s fair game for the city to take its own look. That doesn’t mean her approach will always be punitive, though, and Love has connected with local lending resources to help landlords find ways to afford costly repairs. 

“There has to be a little bit of grace,” she said. “They don’t get to get off the hook, but now they are on the path to being fully functional.” 

Jackson has more than 30,000 renter-occupied units, according to Census data. The version of the rental registration ordinance the council passed appears to be more lenient and less specific than similar laws in neighboring communities. 

In Ridgeland, for instance, Troyer said a tenant cannot put the utilities in their name until a unit passes the city’s inspection. But the city pledges to inspect units within a few days of a landlord’s request. The stricter rule also comes with less inspections, Troyer said, because her Ridgeland tenants stay in their rentals longer. 

“Because you’re not having as much turnover, you’re not having the inspection,” she said. 

Troyer predicts the ordinance will add to her costs of doing business in Jackson — which had already gone up in recent years due to a combination of inflation, insurance and a bogged-down court system that slowed the eviction process for nonpaying tenants. 

“People have a misconception that landlords are rich, but they are not,” she said. “I don’t know why. I guess because you own property, and everybody thinks property is worth something.”

Jackson needed the rental registration program, Troyer said, but she will have to pass the cost on to tenants — a challenge when she is renting in a low-income neighborhood. Along with her husband, who does the maintenance while she handles paperwork, Troyer said she owns less than 20 properties. 

“It all goes back to that affordability issue,” Troyer said. “You’ve got tensions of people trying to live on fixed incomes who can’t afford anything but $300 in rent – which there is nothing you can find for $300 that’s going to be good, halfway decent. But with their income, that’s it for them. So there’s all these tensions out there.”

When Blossom Apartments in south Jackson dramatically closed earlier this year, Troyer said she got a slew of calls from people who were looking for a one-bedroom to rent. She didn’t have any one-bedrooms — and no units available at the prices they could afford.

“There’s not enough federal government money, there’s not enough state money,” she said. “Wherever this money comes from, there’s not enough to help these folks on fixed incomes.”

Even when a crisis like Blossom isn’t happening, Troyer said she gets calls from people who can’t afford the rents she’s offering, even with housing vouchers. 

“It’s a whole masterpiece of problems.”

Another lawsuit has emerged in the aftermath of presidential hires at Jackson State University.

Jerome Tinker, who serves in a leadership position in JSU’s Alumni Affairs office, is suing former president Marcus Thompon and the university in federal court for being turned down for the position of office director.

The lawsuit, filed Dec. 12, represents one side of a legal argument. It says Thompson instructed Monica Lewis, then interim vice president of institutional advancement, not to select Tinker as the interim director of Alumni Affairs or for the permanent post even though as alumni engagement officer he was second in command. The lawsuit alleges Thompson’s motivation was retaliation because Tinker had reported the “unlawful conduct toward a female employee” by Thompson’s predecessor, Thomas Hudson.  

“We are aware of the lawsuit and do not comment on pending litigation,” said John Sewell, communications director for the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, which oversees the state’s eight public universities.

Thompson could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that Thompson, who was then working for IHL, was tasked with investigating the allegations against Hudson. It identifies Thompson as Hudson’s “friend and confidante.”

 “Thompson did not interview the female employee during his so-called investigation. Thompson also was aware of Tinker’s complaint to IHL that Hudson attempted to dissuade him in January of 2023 from suing Hudson and JSU retaliation,” according to the lawsuit

Tinker applied for the director position in November 2024. Lewis and Patrease Edwards, president of the JSU National Alumni Association, interviewed the applicants. According to the lawsuit, Lewis told Thompson that Tinker was one of her top choices, but Thompson ordered her not to offer him the position. When she refused to name someone else, Thompson replaced her as the interim vice president with Sloan Cargill, even though a selection committee had chosen her.

Tinker reapplied for Alumni Affairs director when Cargill re-advertised the position, and Thomspn directed Cargill not to select Tucker, according to the lawsuit. The position remains open.

Hudson resigned as president on March 15, 2023. The IHL Board of Trustees appointed Thompson as his successor on Nov. 16, 2023, and he resigned for unstated reasons in May. The IHL board is in a presidential search process now for his successor.

Tinker seeks either instatement to the position of Alumni Affairs director or front pay, equitable back pay, economic damages for his lost pay and fringe benefits, together with compensatory and punitive damages against Thompson for intentional retaliation as determined by a jury. 

In the aftermath of the Hudson and Thompson presidential selections, IHL has faced two lawsuits, one settled for an undisclosed amount and the other winding its way through federal court.

Debra Mays-Jackson, former vice president and chief of staff at Jackson State University, is suing the board of trustees, alleging that despite being qualified to lead Jackson State, she was passed over in 2023 in favor of Hudson, who had less experience. 

IHL trustees had claimed qualified immunity, a legal protection from liability for government officials, in an effort to dismiss the case. But last week, a federal appears court said the sex discrimination case can go forward.

Over the summer, the board and JSU settled a months-long federal lawsuit filed by a former faculty senate president whom Thompson placed on leave pending termination in fall 2024. The settlement gave Dawn Bishop McLin her job back as a tenured professor.  

The exact circumstances of Bishop’s termination were never released, but members of the faculty senate executive committee said she was apparently placed on leave without any written warning and accused of harassment, malfeasance and “contumacious conduct,” a term stemming from IHL policies that means insubordination. 

A faculty panel reviewed the university’s basis for McLin’s termination and recommended she be reinstated, but Thompson never responded, leaving Bishop in a state of limbo.

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

When I think of a student who “has it all,” Julie springs to mind. A cheerleader and beauty pageant contestant, she excels in sports and math.

Part of my inclusion class last school year and this year as an 8th grader, she works hard throughout her schoolday—from history to math to computer courses—completing in-class and homework assignments on time.

Yet, despite her many strengths, Julie faces a serious challenge: reading fluently. When she looks at a piece of printed text, her mind sees a jumbled mess of words, like a foreign language. As her teacher, I see her struggle to sound out words, and the frustration on her face breaks my heart.

Julie, like 10% of the world’s population, has dyslexia. She gets support from tutors in all her classes and, as part of her classroom accommodations, can have information read aloud to her whenever that helps her learn better. With these supports—whether from a teacher or a computer program—she is able to bridge the gap caused by her disability and succeed academically.

Because of this, Julie’s reading scores grew from 40% last spring to a 90% this fall, showing strong comprehension skills. Her face lit up when I shared the results with her. 

About 15% of students in our state are in special education, which is similar to the national average. However, when students like Julie take the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) required for graduation, only the questions are read aloud—not the passages. The test is designed to measure reading comprehension, which is Julie’s strength—if she can understand the text. MAAP unfairly limits her ability to show what she knows, turning the happy “All-American” girl into a deflated version of herself who worries that not being able to read the passage independently will derail her dream of becoming an engineer.

More than half of states—29 of them—allow state assessment reading passages and stimulus materials to be read to students who have dyslexia and other disabilities. Mississippi must follow suit, switching on the reading lightbulb for our learners and improving our ability to measure what they truly know.

To achieve this, the state should start by creating a task force that includes educators to study the academic benefits and economic implications of allowing students with documented learning differences, including those with dyslexia like Julia, to have state testing passages read aloud. 

As part of its work, the task force could gather case studies from teachers like me who have seen their students grow tremendously in their ability to understand what they read when it’s read aloud to them.

For Julie, the confidence she has gained this school year means she can fully participate in history class discussions about American explorers and Teddy Roosevelt’s visit to Mississippi. Now that she can access more information in her computer course, she is solving advanced math word problems and creating code to make her own video game.

As her future as an engineer seems more likely these days, she beams when she shares she has an A in that class. I know there are many other stories just like Julie’s across Mississippi that make the case for MAAP read-aloud accommodations.  

With the help of the read-alouds in class and continued fluency skill-building, Julie now has a favorite author: Lurlene McDaniel. Like the heroines in the novels that overcome serious illness, she is able to overcome her fear of reading fluently. The reading lightbulb has been switched on for her.

Mississippi must help ensure it turns on for all students in the Magnolia State.  

Brandy Richardson is a 7th and 8th grade special services teacher at Lake Middle School in Lake in Scott and Newton counties and 2025-26 Teach Plus Mississippi Senior Policy Fellow.

Days before this past Halloween, Aidan Girod received a frightening note atop her water bill: “FINAL NOTICE.” The letter said Girod had three weeks to pay her outstanding balance before JXN Water would turn off her tap. 

At the start of the year, the north Jackson waitress received a $2,000 statement that included the several previous months she hadn’t gotten a bill for. As the utility revamps its historically plagued billing system, residents throughout the city have recently received an invoice for the first time in months, if not years. 

Girod, a mother to three young children, agreed to send $300 a month as part of a payment plan. Then in September, she received a bill again charging her $2,000, which JXN Water told her was due to a leak. But a plumber, to whom Girod paid $180, said they couldn’t find it. 

She said a second plumber also couldn’t find a leak. After one of her dozens of phone calls with the utility, JXN Water applied a credit to her bill, although it wasn’t clear to Girod how they decided on the amount. Then in October, she received two water bills, including the one with a final notice, that showed two different balances.

Months later, she still isn’t sure how much she owes, whether she has a leak, or if the utility is getting ready to shut her water off. 

“It has been very stressful,” said Girod, who said she’s had to skip paying other expenses to afford her water bill. “I have a 3-month-old daughter, I’ve given birth during all of this. A lot of that strain has been on simply making sure I have running water for my children.”

Ted Henifin, whom residents, business leaders and public officials have credited with rescuing Jackson’s water system from its darkest moments, says his hands are tied. JXN Water, the third-party utility he runs, needs a surge in revenue to keep afloat, and it needs to come soon. 

But procuring those funds, Henifin admitted, is all the more complicated in a city with a strained relationship between its water supply and residents, many of whom haven’t trusted what comes out of their faucets or what shows up on their bills for years. 

Just last month, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived a class-action lawsuit by residents against Jackson, alleging the city misrepresented the water’s safety after detecting levels of lead over the legal limit in 2015.

In the first two years after he took over in 2022, Henifin knew he needed a proof of concept for residents to buy in. In that time, JXN Water resolved widespread pressure issues, winterized a treatment plant that succumbed to recent cold snaps, and repaired hundreds of sewer line failures. Also, for the first time in a decade, Jackson’s system is in compliance with all federal drinking water requirements, the utility said recently, including the lingering lead violation. 

While residents praised the utility for its work, they soon learned it came with a high cost. This spring, JXN Water announced it had exhausted $150 million in funds from Congress set aside for daily upkeep of the system, which includes paying staff and routine maintenance. 

The utility is a few years away from sustaining itself financially, Henifin projects, and reaching that point means both increasing monthly bills and more aggressively pursuing unpaid balances. With a collection rate of about 70% – far below the national average of over 90% – JXN Water is losing over a million dollars a month. 

“We figured we’d get around to the billing at some point,” Henifin said in a recent interview at his Belhaven office. “Unfortunately the timing between running through the ($150 million of) federal funds and us getting to the billing weren’t exactly aligned.

“So we’re finding the need to get the billing done and collections up faster than we would’ve liked. But I still don’t think we would’ve done it any differently. You got to get the water system and sewer working before you can start beating on people about paying their bill.”

In September, JXN Water shut off water to nearly 1,800 accounts, and Henifin said he expected that number to be higher in October. Based on those counts, the utility has turned off service to roughly 10% of Jacksonians in 2025 alone. 

One of those ratepayers, Dominique Grant, had no idea when she would catch up on her past due balance. A single mother of three, Grant recently fell behind after not receiving a bill for two years, she said. JXN Water told her to make a down payment of $1,900, half of her total balance, to initiate a payment plan, Grant said. 

After she didn’t come up with the money, instead prioritizing bills like her mortgage and car loan, the utility shut off her water in October. 

“I have to ask myself, am I going to take my whole check and pay this water bill, or spread it out to pay my car note, insurance, light bill, mortgage,” said Grant, a case manager at a local hospital. “Unless I take out a loan, I just don’t have $1,900 to give them.”

Between bathing and meals, Grant said she spent over $100 a week on bottled water for her family, or about what JXN Water charges her for a whole month. 

Henifin and other local officials referenced  a “culture of nonpayment” in Jackson that spread after the city installed a faulty metering system from Siemens in 2013. Since then, residents became accustomed to inconsistent and inaccurate billing. Amid metering issues and the COVID-19 pandemic, city officials forewent water shutoffs for much of the past decade. 

With that track record in mind, JXN Water in 2023 proposed a billing system based on property values so customers would see the same amount every month. The state Legislature, though, passed a law blocking the idea soon after. 

Henifin also set up a discount on water bills for homes that receive food benefits through the federal SNAP program. But a recent court ruling blocked JXN Water from automatically applying the discount because of privacy laws. Henifin recently estimated fewer than 600 accounts receive the discount, which is about $30 a month. 

About 11,000 homes in Jackson, or nearly one in five, receive SNAP benefits, according to Census data, which means just 5% of eligible customers are receiving the water discount. 

Since the utility began its widespread shutoffs, both officials and residents have increasingly spoken out against JXN Water, citing a lack of affordability in a city where more than a quarter live below the poverty line. Heightening those tensions is a pending proposal to increase rates, which the utility says would increase the average bill by 12%.

At a recent court hearing, City Attorney Drew Martin panned the utility for not sooner considering its revenue and billing strategy, leading to steeper rate hikes that are tougher for residents to swallow. In October, the Jackson City Council voted to recommend reversing the 2022 order putting Henifin in charge of Jackson’s water system, in large part because of recent shut offs and billing disputes. 

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate, who appointed Henifin as third-party manager, has not acknowledged the city’s vote. Wingate did, though, order an injunction against Henifin’s recent attempt to push through the rate increase without the judge’s approval. Wingate said he would make a ruling on the increase no sooner than Dec. 19. 

Sitting with Mississippi Today in his brightly lit office, Henifin stood firm on the high bill amounts that Jacksonians have contested over the past year, even the ones that somehow tallied into the tens of thousands. Rep. Fabian Nelson, a Democrat whose district includes Jackson, recently submitted letters to Wingate from residents with bills as high as $70,000. 

With new meters at nearly every property, the manager was confident the utility had accurate readings of customers’ usage. In most cases with abnormal balances, JXN Water tells the resident they have a leak. 

While some, such as Girod in north Jackson, hired plumbers who dispute the diagnosis, Henifin doesn’t budge. JXN Water can tell there’s a leak, he said, simply by looking at a meter and seeing the consumption run up continuously throughout the day. 

Henifin suspected a number of residents have “slab leaks” under their home’s foundation, which the average plumber may not be able to find. That’s why the utility now recommends specific contractors for customers to call, he said.

On the customer service side, Henifin conceded there’s much room for improvement, saying residents too often leave phone calls with inconsistent answers. In addition to better training, he’s hoping to have more capacity for in-person appointments, a service JXN Water recently opened at the city’s Medical Mall. 

“People seem to forget we weren’t born a fully functional utility,” Henifin said. “ We were born out of no utility, essentially, and had to create everything along the way. 

“We (first) focused on getting the infrastructure to deliver water, get the sewer to stay in the ground. And now we get into the customer service experience and the billing. There’s nowhere to go but up.”

Yet in the meantime, residents and landlords who either can’t afford their bills or get answers through the call center are left with few options if they want to keep their water on. 

Jennifer Welch, a property manager in Jackson who sits on the city’s newly created Housing Task Force, criticized JXN Water over limited transparency. Welch and other landlords, who in some cases went two or three years without receiving a bill, have tried to ask the utility for clarity around their accounts but received little response, she said. 

“I have reached out to (Henifin) personally to let him know I have real concerns about the billing department,” said Welch, who said she’s met with Henifin throughout his time in Jackson. “He’s downplaying (the billing issue). I’ve just talked to too many people who are struggling.”

A group of nonprofits, including Forward Justice, the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, and the ACLU of MS, argued in court filings that JXN Water has shown little flexibility in its shutoff process, especially for residents who simply aren’t able to make down payments on the large debts they’ve accumulated after years of not receiving bills.

“The threat of losing water service cannot make people quickly find money they don’t have, unless it comes at the expense of forgoing other essential needs like food and medicine,” the groups wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to Wingate.

During a recent hearing at the Capitol, Democratic Sen. Sollie Norward said a woman in his Jackson district recently received a $20,000 water bill. While JXN Water allows customers to enter into payment plans, its policy requires customers with debt to make an initial down payment beforehand.

After forgiving some of the owed balance, the utility asked the woman to pay $4,000, the senator said. But that was still higher than she could afford, Norwood said, and eventually JXN Water shut her water off.

“I don’t know how she got there, and she doesn’t know how she got there,” he said. “Yes, shutting off water gets attention, but it also creates other problems.”

Grant, the single mother whose water was disconnected, cobbled together the $1,900 she needed for a down payment and, after four weeks, finally got her tap back running. After feeling the toll of not having service, she decided to take out a small loan and put off other bills to come up with the money. Still, Grant said JXN Water has unfair expectations of residents’ financial flexibility, especially when many had no idea what they owed for months or years.

“They need to just have a better grasp on things,” she said. “Nobody has thousands of dollars just sitting around to spare.”

Nearly 4,000 teaching positions remain unfilled in Mississippi, hundreds more than last year. 

The Mississippi Department of Education released results from the latest iteration of its annual teacher shortage and educator recruitment surveys Thursday at the state Board of Education’s last meeting of 2025. The surveys paint a sobering picture of the education sector in Mississippi, and validate what teachers have been ringing the alarm bell about for years — low pay is driving the state’s teacher shortage.

Responses from the state’s public schools show that, as of November, there were 6,907 vacancies among teachers, administrators and school support staff across the state. That’s 1,747 more than last year. 

The increase is the biggest jump in recent years. Teachers received pay raises during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years and, subsequently, there were fewer vacancies during that period. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, licensure testing suspensions that made it easier for college students to become teachers likely contributed to fewer vacancies, the agency said in a news release. 

Teacher vacancies are concentrated in special education and elementary education, Courtney Van Cleve, executive director of the Office of Educator Continuum, told state board members. Together, the two categories account for half of all teacher vacancies in Mississippi.

“This does indeed remain one of our greatest areas of need,” she said.

Another area of concern, according to Van Cleve: teacher assistant vacancies. She said that pool is often where the agency looks for prospective teachers. 

A retention and recruitment survey, which the state Education Department released for the first time in conjunction with the educator shortage survey, provided insight into the reasons behind the vacancies. Teachers say a top reason is low pay. 

The National Education Association says Mississippi’s average teacher salary is $53,704, nearly $20,000 less than the national average. That average salary is also the lowest of all 50 states and third-lowest when adjusted for cost of living. 

Educators recently told Mississippi Today they have to take second jobs or forgo necessities to make ends meet financially, and State Auditor Shad White released a report this week drawing attention to the low salaries. 

In recent months, education researchers, teachers and administrators have called on state lawmakers to raise the teacher pay floor once again during the 2026 legislative session, which kicks off in January. 

“The pay has to go up if we’re going to entice people coming from other professions,” said Darein Spann, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators. “We’re going to need more base pay for those with families and those coming from more competitive industries.”

His statewide organization, which advocates on behalf of teachers, regularly contacts educators to poll them about their needs. Spann also hears from mayors and superintendents about obstacles they face in counteracting high teacher vacancies in their communities.

Vacancies increased the most in U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson’s 2nd Congressional District, which encompasses the Delta, the region with the largest population of Black people and low-income households in the state. While some districts offer financial stipends to bolster teacher pay, many Delta districts can’t afford to do the same. 

“The tax base is not as lucrative to support pay supplements that might entice new teachers,” Spann said. “This has been a problem in southwest Mississippi and the Delta for a while.”

Moving forward, the agency plans to address the growing crisis by continuing to loosen licensure standards, especially in crisis areas. 

In response to last year’s educator shortage survey results, the agency allowed college students studying education to start teaching elementary school classes on a provisional license while taking a free course to satisfy the Foundation of Reading test requirements. The state Education Department also removed its reading test requirement for prospective special education teachers with “mild to moderate students” or special education students who can be taught in general education classrooms. 

The education agency is reviewing its criteria for secondary mathematics education supplemental endorsements. 

Some educators have scrutinized those licensure decisions. Others, like Spann, say they’re necessary to recruit teachers. 

“I do think we need to open up more opportunities for people to become certified while we work on recruitment statewide,” he said. 

This year, the state Education Department rolled out a revamped teacher recruitment website aimed at making the pathway to teaching more accessible, and the Legislature put $3 million toward the state’s teacher residency program, which paid for tuition and expenses associated with teacher licensure for 201 additional students at nine Mississippi universities. 

Van Cleve said in an email that the state Education Department hopes to address regional shortages through the residency program and will continue to promote the recruitment website. 

Delta reporter Leonardo Bevilacqua contributed to this report.

Denise Jones Gregory, Jackson State University’s interim president, is now eligible to apply for the permanent position thanks to a one-time policy waiver. 

The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, which oversees the state’s public universities, voted Thursday to waive part of a policy that would prevent an interim president from applying for the permanent position at the institution they lead, according to a news release from IHL.

The waiver only applies to the current JSU president search, and the vote was unanimous, said John Sewell, IHL’s communications director. 

Without the waiver, if Jones Gregory wanted to apply for the permanent role as president, she would first have to step down from the interim position. 

The vote reflects feedback the board received from JSU alumni and some students this summer questioning the fairness of the search process and criticizing the approach for a repeated lack of transparency. At a July meeting, some JSU stakeholders asked if Jones Gregory would get a fair shot at the permanent role. 

Jones Gregory, a JSU alumna, was the university’s provost and vice president of academic affairs before stepping into the interim leadership role. 

In a statement released in May after her appointment as a temporary leader, Jones Gregory expressed her appreciation for the chance to lead the university. 

“It has been my privilege to serve Jackson State as provost, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to continue serving my alma mater in this new role,” she said. “My commitment is to uphold the standard of excellence that defines Jackson State in every area of university life.

“As a proud graduate of JSU, I know what this university means to the people it serves because it has shaped every part of my life. This legacy grounds me and guides me.”

Jones Gregory could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. 

The Thursday vote was not the first time the IHL board temporarily waived its policy related to interim presidents applying for the permanent position. 

In 2023, the IHL board voted 7-5 to allow Elayne Hayes Anthony, who was the temporary acting president, to apply for the permanent role. Dr. Steven Cunningham, the only Jackson State alumnus on the board and the trustee leading that university’s presidential search, voted no. He said he didn’t want to dissuade outside candidates from applying for the role. After conducting an international search and interviewing 79 applicants, the board hired Marcus Thompson. 

The top role at Jackson State has been vacant since May, when Thompson resigned as president less than two years into his tenure.

Jackson State’s next president will be its fourth since 2020, when then-President William Bynum, who was appointed in 2017, left after his arrest on multiple charges including possessing marijuana, giving a “false statement of identity” and “procuring the services of prostitute.”