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Fourth grade literacy gains earned Mississippi national acclaim. But that achievement tapers off as students advance to higher grades. 

Lawmakers are putting millions toward changing that. 

Mississippi has seen the least progress across subject areas in eighth grade reading scores, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and performs near the bottom compared to the rest of the country. 

This gap has long concerned lawmakers, who in large part chalk those fourth-grade gains up to the 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act, a state law that raised literacy standards and established a reading “gate,” a test that third graders have to pass to advance to fourth grade. 

The Legislature passed Senate Bill 2294 this past session in an attempt to extend the state’s reading gains. The legislation established several classroom initiatives in Mississippi, including expanding initiatives in the state’s existing literacy act into higher grades.

Senate Bill 2294 directs $9 million toward the Adolescent Literacy Initiative, which will fund literacy coaches in districts across the state starting this school year. The initiative ramps up literacy education for fourth through eighth grade students, including introducing assessments throughout the year to gauge how well students are keeping up with reading benchmarks and requiring schools use high-quality curriculum pre-selected by the agency. Early pilots have been lauded among educators, but it’s too early to see results yet. 

House Education Committee Vice Chairman Kent McCarty, a Republican from Hattiesburg, said for a long time, lawmakers were waiting for those third graders to matriculate into the eighth grade, expecting to see reading progress then. But those students have come and gone, and eighth grade reading has remained stagnant. It’s a worrisome sign, he said, given the correlation between reading and life outcomes. 

“We need our students to be performing better because every child deserves to know how to read,” McCarty said. “If we’re not meeting that very basic need, we have failed them terribly.”

‘That’s not the ballgame’

The 2013 literacy law overhauled how the state taught and measured reading in kindergarten through third grade. 

Students took screeners, which are assessments intended to gauge proficiency, throughout the year and were held back in the third grade if they didn’t pass a reading assessment, one of the most controversial pieces of the law. Students who were retained received intensive remediation.

Teachers underwent extensive training in the science of reading and received ongoing professional development from coaches. The state Education Department deployed coaches to the neediest schools, so teachers could receive live help, and approved a handful of curriculum that schools were required to use. 

And slowly, reading proficiency among the state’s youngest readers began to climb.

That progress is no mystery, said Rachel Canter, director of education policy for Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. 

“It’s a big picture, and people have zoomed in on one piece, depending on who it is,” said Canter, the former leader of Mississippi First, an education policy advocacy group. “You’re not going to get anything out of coaching teachers in the absence of accountability or standards or measurement or transparency.”

Pilot program in Wayne County

Mississippi Department of Education officials selected Wayne County, along with Kosciusko and Moss Point, to pilot the adolescent literacy initiative last year. 

Mildred Gandy was a little suspicious when the reading coaches arrived. But Gandy, a longtime seventh- and eighth-grade English/Language Arts teacher at Buckatunna Elementary School in Wayne County, learned that she and her colleagues could slowly roll out the literacy strategies in her classes and use them in every subject area, allowing students to engage more deeply with their work. Then she was fully on board.

“Teachers will always buy in when they see students becoming engaged,” she said. “You’ve got to reach them before you can teach them.”

Over the course of the year, coaches from the Florida Center for Reading Research showed teachers new strategies on how to teach older students how to read. These included giving students a framework for how to take notes during class and teaching them how to mark a text as they read in order to more easily find answers to questions later. Coaches told teachers to find an engaging question to get students to read the text more than once.

Gandy often worked with another history teacher, aligning their classes so students were hearing about similar topics and being taught similar strategies throughout the day. 

Crystal Bates, curriculum director at Wayne County School District, said teachers were impressed with the training and were able to deploy the literacy strategies in the classrooms.

“Usually English II is one of the hardest state tests for students to pass to graduate, so anything helps,” she said. “It’s not just about getting them through a gate. We’ve got to get them a diploma.”

No reading ‘gate’

Soon, middle school classrooms across the state will be using the same reading strategies. 

As part of the literacy initiative, the state education agency will deploy coaches to schools across the state, provide training for teachers, require screeners throughout the year to assess students’ proficiency and mandate that schools use agency-approved curriculum. 

But the new legislation is not a replica of the 2013 bill, said Michelle Nowell, associate superintendent in the state Department of Education’s Office of Curriculum and Instruction.

Teachers across subject areas will receive training, with the goal of providing middle-schoolers with literacy training in multiple classes. And students will primarily be taught reading strategies instead of phonics.

Another component that’s missing: The reading gate that drew so much ire in 2013. 

McCarty said lawmakers omitted a retention component from the adolescent bill because research shows that holding older students back negatively impacts their chances of graduating. 

But the adolescent initiative does require remediation. Throughout the school year, McCarty said, students who aren’t meeting academic benchmarks will receive help. The agency is working on an intensive remediation course for students who pass the eighth grade but aren’t reading on grade level, Nowell said.

Gandy was apprehensive about the effectiveness of the literacy initiative without holding students accountable with the possibility of retention.

“I don’t know if (the remediation) is enough,” she said. “But it’s definitely a start.”

“If” has often been the refrain for many Mississippi Democrats after losing statewide elections, as they have done with regularity since 2003.

“If we only had a candidate who could energize true Democrats to the polls, we could win those statewide elections,” is a paraphrase of the full refrain.

That “if” has to be in the back of Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom’s mind as the Democrat campaigns to upend incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in the November midterm election. 

In short, what Colom has to ponder is some people’s belief that a lot of Mississippians support many of the principles of national Democrats but are not voting because Mississippi candidates generally avoid those issues or campaign with a more conservative bent.

Colom’s already herculean task is made even more difficult by the fact that independent Ty Pinkins, a former Democrat, is also in the race and could possibly siphon votes from him.

Colom, obviously, needs every Democratic vote in his bid to upset Hyde-Smith and become the first Democratic senator from Mississippi since the 1980s and the first Black Mississippi senator since the 1800s.

Recent Democratic campaigns

Former Attorney General Jim Hood, the last Mississippi Democrat to win a statewide election, was accused of not embracing his party as he campaigned with his hunting dog, rifle and pickup truck in his 2019 loss to Republican Tate Reeves in the governor’s race.

After the 2023 election, former Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley faced much of the same criticism after his unsuccessful attempt to defeat Reeves. Most would concede that Presley ran closer to the national Democratic Party than did Hood.

The results, though, were close to the same.

In his 2020 campaign against Hyde-Smith, former U.S. Rep. Mike Espy came closer to running as a national Democrat than both Presley and Hood. For that effort, Espy garnered more votes than any Democrat in a statewide campaign since Bill Waller in his victorious 1971 gubernatorial race.

But Espy garnered a lower percentage of votes in a higher-turnout election than did Hood or Moore.

In 2019, Reeves defeated Hood 52% to 47%, or by a little more than 45,000 votes. In a lower-turnout election four years later, Reeves beat Presley 51% to 48%, or by fewer than 27,000 votes.

In the 2020 Senate election, Hyde-Smith won 54% to 44%, or by fewer than 131,000 votes in the highest turnout election in the state’s history. Remember, Espy garnered more votes than any Democrat since Waller in the 1971 gubernatorial election.

What the numbers mean for midterm election

Based on the numbers, can the argument be confirmed that some Mississippians are sitting at home on election day who could sway the election to a Democrat if they could be inspired to go to the polls?

In considering that question, it is important to keep in mind that Mississippi is generally near the bottom each election cycle in terms of voter participation.

According to the University of Florida Election Lab, nationally 66.4% of eligible voters cast a ballot in 2020. That year 60.6% of eligible Mississippians did so.

If Mississippians had equaled that national participation in 2020, an additional 126,500 people would have voted.

If that had occurred and all the additional voters had cast Espy ballots, which of course would not have happened, he still would have lost to Hyde-Smith by about 5,000 votes.

But that was a presidential election, and by happenstance an election that set both a national and Mississippi record for the number of voters. A midterm election, such as the upcoming Colom vs. Hyde-Smith contest, is a different story. The turnout will be much lower – perhaps closer to a Mississippi gubernatorial turnout.

In that instance, new voters perhaps could make a difference for Colom if – there is that word again –  he could equal Presley’s or even Hood’s performance.

Colom, though, must walk that fine line of attracting those mysterious hard-to-find Mississippi progressives while not scaring away moderate voters who might be considering him in the current political environment where Trump and the Republicans have lost some of their luster nationally and perhaps even in true-red Mississippi.

If – if – Colom could accomplish those goals, perhaps he could give Mississippi Democrats something to cheer about for the first time in a long time.

OCEAN SPRINGS — Mississippi researchers will help lead a new $13.5 million national effort to expand U.S. seafood production, positioning the Gulf Coast at the center of aquaculture research and development. 

The University of Southern Mississippi and Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium were selected to participate in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s Cooperative Institute Fostering Aquaculture Research and Markets, or CIFARM.  

The five-year initiative, led by the University of New Hampshire, aims to improve aquaculture technology and strengthen domestic seafood production.  

“The U.S. still doesn’t do very much aquaculture, particularly marine aquaculture,” said Reginald Blaylock, director of USM’s Thad Cochran Marine Aquaculture Center. “We eat a lot of seafood — and we import it.”

According to NOAA, Americans consume about $24.2 billion in imported seafood each year, much of it farmed in other countries. 

“For years, we’ve been interested in trying to change that so that we actually produce the food that we eat here and get the economic benefits of the jobs that the industry creates and the food security,” Blaylock said. 

Mississippi leads Gulf Coast role 

USM and the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium will serve as the lead representatives for the Gulf of Mexico region within the national cooperative. 

“(The institute) will be centered at the University of New Hampshire, but we have regional centers around the country,” Blaylock said. “This will be a large, coordinated effort among the groups.” 

Steve Sempier, director of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, said the organization will work with Sea Grant programs in Texas, Louisiana and Florida to identify regional aquaculture needs and opportunities. 

“Sea Grant and USM are the leads for the Gulf region right now,” Sempier said.  

Researchers will use input from industry, coastal communities and other stakeholders to identify knowledge gaps and guide future research priorities. 

What researchers will study 

At its most basic level, aquaculture is farming plants or animals in water, according to Blaylock. 

“It can be aquatic plants, plant-like organisms. It can be animals, fish, shrimp, whatever — anything that you’re growing, cultivating in the water,” he said. 

NOAA said CIFARM projects will focus on demonstration farms, engineering, artificial intelligence, environmental forecasting, risk management and seafood markets. 

At USM, researchers will contribute expertise developed through years of studying marine species and production methods to help farmers use the best methods and species for aquaculture. 

“We’ve worked with a lot of different species here to try to alleviate the bottlenecks in (aquaculture),” Blaylock said. 

Sempier said the institute represents NOAA’s largest coordinated investment in aquaculture research. 

“This is the first large-scale cooperative institute that’s focused specifically on aquaculture,” Sempier said. “It’s very exciting to see that NOAA is interested in investing in the future of aquaculture throughout the country.” 

Why it matters on the Gulf Coast

Sempier said aquaculture in the Gulf has grown over the last decade, particularly in oyster production, but the project will examine a much broader range of opportunities. 

Researchers will study both offshore and coastal aquaculture systems and explore the potential for species ranging from shellfish to finfish. 

“This is a much broader look at the potential for aquaculture growth throughout the country,” Sempier said. 

He said expanding aquaculture could create new opportunities for people who make their living on the water while supporting local economies. 

Sempier said aquaculture in the Gulf has grown over the last decade, particularly in oyster production, but the project will examine a much broader range of opportunities. 

Researchers will study both offshore and coastal aquaculture systems and explore the potential for species ranging from shellfish to finfish. 

“This is a much broader look at the potential for aquaculture growth throughout the country,” Sempier said. 

He said expanding aquaculture could create new opportunities for people who make their living on the water while supporting local economies. 

Public input sought 

Both Blaylock and Sempier said community input will play an important role as the project develops. 

“It doesn’t matter if you can grow a particular product if people are not interested in that product,” Blaylock said. 

Sempier said Sea Grant plans to hold workshops and listening sessions beginning next year to gather questions, concerns and ideas from Gulf Coast residents. 

“We would love to get input from anybody who’s willing to share their thoughts and opinions as this project ramps up,” he said. 

For Mississippi, the next five years could help determine how much of America’s seafood future is shaped from the Gulf Coast. 

“The U.S. imports almost 90% of the seafood it eats,” Blaylock said. “What we want to see come out of this is American products on American plates.” 

SENATOBIA – Demonstrators marched through the north Mississippi town of Senatobia on Friday in support of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley’s family and calling for accountability from law enforcement involved in his death. Despite temperatures reaching a heat index of 95 degrees, according to the National Weather Service, demonstrators walked through the town with fists raised, chanting calls for justice and accountability. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety says a police officer responding to a shoplifting call on June 14 shot at a car that drove in the officer’s direction, killing Kohen. 

READ MORE: Marchers in Senatobia demand justice in wake of officer-involved killing of 1-year-old

SENATOBIA – Justice. Accountability. Transparency. 

The family of Kohen Wiley and supporters are calling for answers nearly two weeks after the 1-year-old was fatally wounded when police fired into a car in a Walmart parking lot here. 

Nearly 100 people gathered Friday morning at the store on U.S. 51 and marched about three miles through the city, passing by municipal offices before returning to the Walmart. They had planned to go to the Senatobia Police Department, but a closed road that was under construction prevented that. 

The family shared renewed demands: Total and full transparency, which includes the release of law enforcement body and dashboard video and footage from inside and outside the Walmart. They also called for the release of communication between police and the store leading up to and after the June 14 shooting. The incident that resulted in the killing of Wiley was sparked by a report of shoplifting for which no one has been charged. That information should be released to the family and its legal team, supporters said. 

“If I commit a crime and it’s on video, (I am) arrested and charged the same day,” said Marquell Bridges, an activist who is serving as the Wiley family’s spokesperson.

“Nothing takes six to nine months when you have all these cameras, all these angles,” he said in reference to how long state investigators said it will take to complete their investigation. 

READ MORE: Photos: March for Kohen Wiley in Senatobia

Kohen’s father, Davion Williams, stood at the front of the march, and he and others carried a banner with the child’s picture under the words “Rest in Heaven.”

In the afternoon, marchers returned to the Walmart and added the new banner to Kohen’s memorial, which is decorated with stuffed animals, toys, signs, flowers and a wooden cross bearing the child’s name. 

Kohen’s family attended his viewing Friday afternoon after the march. At a town hall meeting Friday evening  at Fairway Christian Church in Senatobia, many of the marchers, Kohen’s parents, Wiley family members and other community members attended a town hall where organizers and attorneys talked about sustained organizing and advocacy.

Four mothers who lost siblings and children in deadly law enforcement encounters offered advice to Kohen’s parents and extended their support.

“This is a club nobody wants to be a part of,” said Tracey Williams, whose son Breonte Johnson-Davis was tased to death by Florida police officers in 2023.

Among the mothers were those of children killed by Mississippi law enforcement officers: Bettersten Wade, whose son Dexter Wade was hit by an off-duty Jackson police officer on I-55 in Jackson and was buried unidentified in the Hinds County pauper grave, and Arkela Lewis, whose son Jaylen Lewis was shot and killed by Capitol Police in Jackson during a vehicle stop in 2022. 

The keynote speaker was political organizer Fred Hampton Jr., whose father was a Black Panther Party leader and was killed in his bed in an FBI raid in Chicago. Hampton Jr., chairman of the Black Panther Party Cubs, shared tips for organizing, including telling the crowd to pay attention to terms used to describe a situation and control the narrative. 

On June 14, Senatobia police officers and Tate County sheriff’s deputies responded to the store for a reported shoplifting and saw two women and a juvenile get into a car in the Walmart parking lot and start to drive away, state officials said. When the car allegedly drove toward law enforcement, an officer shot into the vehicle. 

“When in any state is petty larceny a death sentence?” asked march attendee Jacob Blake Sr., whose son Jacob was shot multiple times by a Wisconsin officer in 2020 and left paralyzed. In that case, state and federal investigations did not result in criminal charges for the officer. 

Neither Kohen’s mother nor the family friend who was driving and was critically wounded have been charged with the reported shoplifting of diapers and a bottle of water, according to the family’s attorneys.

Vellesiya Wiley, Kohen’s mother, has said she had the 1-year-old in her arms and was trying to tell officers that a child was present. Then Wiley said she heard three to four shots, one of which hit her son and others that hit the driver.

As of Friday, Bridges said the woman driver is recovering from the shooting and is moving again with a walker. 

Bridges, who organized the demonstrations, said the previous three protests over the shooting were peaceful, respectful and did not lead to arrests or violence, except for the first protest when law enforcement outside the store doors deployed tear gas to disperse the crowd.

He is among those who have called for a boycott of the store, which Bridges said is a way to apply pressure on law enforcement agencies in Senatobia and Walmart to release surveillance video leading up to and of the shooting, including footage from the store showing the alleged theft.

The Walmart closed Friday and its store entrances were blocked off by barricades. Walmart spokesperson Kelly Hellbusch said the company was aware of the planned demonstrations, which is why the decision was made to close the store. 

“We remain heartbroken by what happened at our store last Sunday,” she said in a Friday statement. “The safety of our associates and customers is our top priority. We continue to work closely with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations and are deferring to them on additional questions.” 

It is not clear who called for law enforcement the day of the shooting, including whether the caller was a store employee. Hellbusch did not answer questions about the relationship between the store and Senatobia police and Tate County Sheriff’s Department. 

She also did not say whether there is policy or guidance for store employees to determine whether to call law enforcement, including if someone is suspected of shoplifting.

Demonstrators included community members who brought their own homemade signs, and some residents from other parts of the state and Memphis. Some also traveled from the Midwest and California, including those from national and international organizations such as Black Lives Matter Grassroots and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Legal observers and an individual who could render medical aid followed. 

At the beginning of the march, no law enforcement cruisers were seen outside the Walmart, where they had been stationed throughout the week. Later on, a Tate County sheriff’s deputy exited a cruiser and talked briefly with legal observers before following the march from the rear. In the afternoon, a few Senatobia police cruisers were parked along the march route. 

Interactions between demonstrators and the people they passed included some honking their horns, raising a fist or taking out their phones to record. 

About an hour into the march along East Main Street, a white man smoking a cigarette watched people pass by for about a minute until a demonstrator addressed him, saying she was marching because an officer shot a child. The man asked whether she was from town, and the Black woman said that didn’t matter. Then, a Black man who was also a demonstrator and the same man yelled at each other, before the white man extended his hand in a Nazi salute. 

Bridges said a Walmart boycott is part of an ongoing national effort. Nationally, boycotts and economic blackouts have been used in recent years against corporations including Walmart to drive economic and political change, according to the People’s Union USA. 

Walmart is the nation’s largest retailer with $713 billion in global sales revenue. Corporate tax filings show a $6.99 billion annual revenue across 86 Walmart stores in Mississippi, according to a research report by Capital One Shopping. 

Attorneys for the Wiley family previously said they were expecting to receive a preliminary autopsy report by Wednesday. But as of Friday, neither the legal team nor family spokesperson said whether Kohen’s family had received and reviewed a report yet. 

Earlier this week, the attorneys, Ben Crump and Van Turner, called for an independent autopsy separate from the one completed by the state to provide the family with clearer answers. 

If the completed autopsy by the state medical examiner determines the cause of death was homicide, it doesn’t mean anyone will be charged. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which examines all officer shootings, will report its findings to the attorney general’s office. From there, the attorney general’s office will review the officer’s use of force and present the case to a Tate County grand jury. There, jurors will determine whether to indict the officer on any criminal charges. 

Since 2022, few Mississippi law enforcement officers have been criminally charged in police shootings. The attorney general’s office has also cleared a majority of officers for their use of force. 

Other events scheduled for the weekend include a Saturday vigil at a park in Sardis at 6 p.m. and a Sunday afternoon community engagement event and neighborhood cookout in Senatobia. 

Update 6/26/26: This story has been updated to include comments at a Friday town hall meeting.

BILOXI — As a young teen in 1960s Saigon, Vietnam, Coi Nguyen learned English by listening to tape recorders and comparing her speech to the cassette’s. When her friends teased that there was no one to practice with, she responded, “I talk to the machine.”

Now, Nguyen lives on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, where she volunteers for the local Vietnamese community as a translator and interpreter at doctor’s appointments and legal hearings. Sometimes, Nguyen said, people will give her a tip or take her out to a meal. But for her, the work is not for the money. It’s because of her connection with a community she’s lived in for the past two decades. 

“Everybody knows me as a friend, a family,” she said. 

The Coast is home to half the state’s 9,000 Vietnamese individuals, who represent one of the largest Asian diasporas in Mississippi. Despite the size of the community, local healthcare workers say there are only a handful of Vietnamese-speaking medical providers in the area, creating challenges for those with limited English proficiency. The persistent language barrier has pushed a network of Vietnamese speakers and volunteers to take matters into their own hands, carving out time to help neighbors navigate the healthcare system. 

Nguyen, who is semi-retired, describes herself as an easy-going person with the time to help anyone, especially if they’re a good cook. Working in her apartment kitchen under the guiding eye of a lucky cat figurine, she makes calls and scans documents for her neighbors. She records every appointment in her handmade “little book,” which is filled with names, times and addresses scrawled in both English and Vietnamese. 

Her roster includes those who would otherwise have put off care and some who most potential volunteers didn’t have the patience for. She remembers one woman in particular whose personality neighbors found hard to handle, and who later needed psychiatric care. 

“I feel like, if I don’t drive her, who will? And if I don’t help her, who help?” she said. “It takes me a little more time, but that’s okay.” 

A need for better language access

In the 1970s, large numbers of Vietnamese refugees started arriving in New Orleans, fleeing the fall of Saigon and the conclusion of the Vietnam War. They then gravitated toward Biloxi for work in the seafood industry. 

By the 2000s, roughly 5,000 Vietnamese people lived in Mississippi, one of the largest such communities in the Deep South, according to data from the U.S. Census. 

To’s family lived in public housing surrounded by Vietnamese neighbors. Like many Vietnamese children in the area, she was the bridge between her family and their English-speaking surroundings. 

“When I was growing up, I was the interpreter,” she said. “I interpreted for my parents. If they had surgery or whatever, I skipped school and went to surgery with them.”

It was never a comfortable experience, she said, because relaying medical jargon was difficult as a child. Neither To nor her parents knew specialized medical terms in Vietnamese. 

The barriers in language access to healthcare that To experienced growing up remain present on the Coast today.

The Singing River Health System, a major regional provider, saw over 700 Vietnamese patients in the past year, of whom over 60% likely needed interpretation or translation services, a hospital spokesperson said.

Hospitals that receive federal funding are required by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to offer “meaningful access” to language assistance, although there is no government enforcement of the policy. Many have third-party services, such as LanguageLine Solutions, to connect healthcare providers with virtual interpreters. 

However, many Vietnamese-speaking patients prefer to have an in-person interpreter, according to Cynthia Le, a bilingual nurse practitioner at the Singing River Health Medical Clinic in downtown Biloxi. She said she is one of the handful of Vietnamese-speaking healthcare professionals who grew up on the Coast and stayed to serve her community. She uses her Vietnamese daily, and patients are often referred to her because she is fluent in their native tongue. 

“I still have a good bit of Vietnamese patients that don’t have the family support or can’t speak the English language at all,” she said. “It’s just easier for them to speak directly (to me) than go through another person to translate.” 

In her two decades of practice, Le found that speaking to patients in Vietnamese allows them to have more agency in their own care because they understand why their medications are important and are more likely to accept preventive care, such as cancer screenings.

“I have a lot of patients that don’t want to go do their colonoscopy because they don’t have anybody (who speaks Vietnamese) to take them,” she said.  

A network of volunteers and grassroots organizations step up to fill gaps

Many children, young and adult, accompany their parents to medical appointments as interpreters, multiple healthcare providers said. But as younger generations start their careers and have their own families, some, including Le, have seen the number of family interpreters on the Coast drop.

To meet the need for in-person interpretation, volunteers and community health workers step in.

Dat Thanh Phung, Nguyen’s grand-nephew, immigrated to Mississippi from Vietnam seven years ago and followed her into the insurance broker business. In between studying for his accounting degree and taking care of his young family, he volunteers to help his insurance clients with their doctor’s visits. 

“They let me know before, one week, and I will fit my schedule to them,” Phung said.

Phung is still practicing English himself, so he’ll often call clients to go over their symptoms in advance, making sure he knows how to say those symptoms in English.

“I just want to make sure that I understand 100% about the sickness and what medication they need,” he said. 

For Phung, the motivation to help others stems from his own experiences stumbling through language barriers, like when he took 14 visits to the DMV to fill out permit paperwork.

He’s heard his clients talk about not wanting to go to the emergency room because they wouldn’t be able to speak to the workers. Instead, he said, they “absorb the pain.” When he helps interpret, Phung said that he can assuage some of that worry and that clients often invite him to a meal as thanks. 

Nguyen spends much of her free time helping people who can’t go to the doctor on their own. She said one woman only trusts her to accompany her to physical therapy appointments, and another always asks if she can sleep over at “Ms. Coi’s house.” 

Over the years, she’s gotten to know the personalities of her repeat clients, whom she also sees at church, in the restaurants and local supermarkets.  

“I get to the point that I know people inside out,” she said. 

Organizations seek to broaden access

Outside of volunteer efforts, one of the only organizations supporting Vietnamese language access to healthcare in the Gulf Coast area is Boat People SOS. The nonprofit helps community members set up appointments, sends interpreters to doctor’s appointments and connects people with Medicare-covered transportation. 

Nguyen worked part-time at Boat People SOS shortly after she moved to Mississippi from Canada, and got connected to other local efforts to improve healthcare access. One instance is when she was tapped by the Mississippi Department of Health in 2021 for their COVID-19 Vietnamese Task Force to lead vaccination outreach for the community. 

Like many of the people she helps, Nguyen lives alone in Biloxi. Her daughter, Annie, is in nursing school and works in a hospital 90 minutes away. 

Three years ago, Nguyen lost her son Peter, who was living in Canada at the time. His passing is another reason she finds fulfillment in her volunteer work. 

“If I am alone and then have nothing to do, I will miss him and I cry all day, you know? But talking to people and helping them fills up my time,” she said.

There are limits to Nguyen’s efforts. While she has heard of others in the community who will offer rides or help with interpretation, most don’t have the dedicated time that she does or the longstanding knowledge of each person’s history. She said she worries about the people she will one day leave behind, especially those that she drives to appointments because they physically cannot drive or don’t own a vehicle. 

Nguyen added that the number of Vietnamese-speaking providers and volunteers remains limited. She said she wishes for more organized financial support from the city or state to help patients access healthcare through organizations such as Boat People SOS. The low-income Vietnamese community and those who don’t speak English at all are most vulnerable, she said. 

“I’m 65 years old, I cannot stay here forever,” she said. “But if I’m gone, who help them, you know?”

This story was produced as part of the AAJA VOICES fellowship program, a student journalism project of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).  

This story was produced with support from the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism.

GREENVILLE — Greenville school district officials plan to close a school that is plagued with mold and leaks. Although leaders of the financially troubled district say the closure of Coleman Middle School is temporary, they are not saying how long repairs might take.

Superintendent Ilean Richards said at a school board meeting Thursday that she fears the state health department would shutter Coleman, which enrolled more than 200 students. 

“Because we have not repaired that roof, it’s literally raining in the school,” she told a board room packed with community members. She said it’s raining to the point that ceiling tiles, which were installed in the most recent renovation, are falling down.

“Children should not have to go to school in that kind of condition,” Richards told an audience of Coleman alumni. “If we want to keep Coleman, we’re going to have to stop and fix it.”

The school board voted Friday to relocate Coleman students to T. L. Weston Middle School.

District leaders did not disclose when repairs would begin, and it’s unclear how the district would fund renovations. The new school year starts on Aug. 5.

Greenville schools faced a series of financial setbacks in the past year. Leadership must properly account for more than $4 million in pandemic relief money or pay the sum back to the state education department in addition to paying roughly $500,000 in misreported tax withholdings to the Internal Revenue Service. 

The second floor of Coleman cannot be used due to the leaking roof, Richards said. School staff have to wipe away mold on walls after rain, she told community members. 

The school’s library also cannot be used in part because of mold, Richards said.

Coleman’s auditorium underwent renovations in the last five years with the addition of air conditioning, but the gym sometimes gets too hot to use.

“So we can’t kick the can down the road because we don’t have a road to kick the can down,” board secretary Allison Washington said. She pushed for the board to choose a site for those students with enough time for parents to buy school-specific uniforms and prepare for the first day of classes.

The board agreed to tour nearby Armstrong Elementary School on Friday to vet it as a temporary location for Coleman students. Board member Oliver Johnson wanted to ensure Coleman students attend a school in their neighborhood.

“We have had a number of schools on this side of town that just closed,” he said. 

The board room was packed on Thursday evening with over two dozen Coleman alumni who voiced concerns about the board shuttering a storied community institution. Coleman was the city’s Black high school during segregation and won multiple state football championships.

Glenn Davis, who was forced to transfer to the newly integrated Greenville high school his senior year in 1971, still vividly recalls Friday night football games when the whole community would pack the field behind Coleman. Davis said Coleman was known as far away as California for its athleticism and school spirit.

“This school is a legacy,” Davis said. “The whole community had pride. That field out by the school used to be packed all the way around inside for games. Everybody would come.”

Other alumni were upset to see their beloved alma mater in a state of disrepair. They said it was proof that leaders had not properly cared for it over the years. 

“And now they let the school get so bad and they got to close it down. That’s crazy,” Coleman alum Kevin January said. “They already took so much money to keep it up.”

He said he also worries that combining middle schoolers from different sides of town will lead to more fights. The concern was echoed by other community members when Richards took questions from the audience.

At the meeting’s close, Richards asked for volunteers to help make Coleman last another 100 years. She specifically called for the rusted fence that runs the perimeter of the campus to be torn down. Several parents and alumni signed their name to a sheet of loose leaf paper to help out on a future date.

“It shouldn’t be looking like that in front of Coleman. That says: We don’t care anything about this school,” Richards said of the dilapidated fence. “We can’t keep it going. And that’s where it is. And you pass by it every day. So you have children in there.”

January was motivated to advocate for his alma mater on Thursday. He had many fond memories of the football and basketball teams. He said it was one of the places in the city, which he most associated with his childhood. Many of his friends from those years are still his closest friends.

He also hopes his mother, who is a school employee, will be able to keep her job. 

For some alumni, the board meeting was an opportunity to reminisce with classmates about the Greenville they knew.

Joanne Fisher, a Coleman alum and retired teacher, remembers Charles Petty, a stern but passionate history teacher who always wore a suit. She said the energy inside the building was joyful even though teachers were strict.

“Children wanted to come to school,” she recalled. “You went in there to do your work. It was family oriented.”

Fisher has seen a beloved school close before. She attended the Ray Brooks School, a Benoit school that was closed in 2020. She said it was troubling to hear of vandalism at the former school building. She also hated to see it ransacked and desecrated.

West Bolivar High School in Rosedale faced a similar fate after its closure in 2021. A jersey, trophy, football helmet as well as other memorabilia were stolen from the abandoned building this past year. Many composites still hang from decaying walls inside the historic school building. 

Fisher is hopeful the school district will rebuild. She says that Greenville locals are resilient, and if any cause could bring the community together, this could be it.

“When I was there, we all got along,” she recalled of her time at Coleman. “I think the district could bounce back with everybody working together to rebuild it. It’s not going to have to start with the school district. It’s got to be all of us.”

Update 6/26/26: This story was updated to note that the Greenville school board voted Friday to relocate Coleman Middle School students to T.L. Weston Middle School.

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..

Len Engel of the Crime and Justice Institute recently laid out what a decade of data shows about Mississippi’s criminal legal process: the highest incarceration rate in the country, sentence lengths for nonviolent offenses growing while the prison population climbs, parole violation readmissions up 150% since 2013.

That analysis makes these trends visible. What it doesn’t capture is what happens at the front end of that process, in the hours and days after arrest, when the quality of legal representation begins to shape everything that follows. Thirty-five years of practice tells me where to look for their causes.

I have practiced criminal law in Mississippi since 1990. I established the first state-funded trial level public defender office in 2001 and have served as state defender since 2016. I served on the task force that offered the recommendations that became House Bill 585 in 2014.

Recently I was in a justice court where a client had spent two weeks in jail on $100,000 bail for possession of a small amount of a controlled substance. His lawyer, appointed days after bail was set, spoke to the client’s grandparents and secured his release to their custody with no bail posted. A good outcome for him, but the two weeks he waited for a lawyer cost the county $1,000 in per diem fees to a private detention center.

Mississippi does not have enforceable statewide standards for indigent defense. Each county and city sets its own budget, its own compensation structure, its own expectations for workload. Despite a court rule requiring counsel be assigned “as soon as practical,” the state Supreme Court lacks the capacity to enforce it — and so the rule is routinely ignored.

The result is profound disparity. In some jurisdictions, attorneys carry caseloads that make meaningful representation impossible. In others, counsel does not meet a client until the day of a hearing. It is routine for attorneys to remain on paper as counsel for months — through indictment — without preparing for trial. Information is lost, cases have to be reconstructed, resolutions are delayed and outcomes are shaped less by the facts than by the capacity of whoever happens to be initially assigned.

Continuity changes that. A client in our Day One pilot office was arrested on a nonviolent felony and identified as a strong candidate for drug court. He wanted to turn his life around. But drug court pleas typically happen only after indictment, which can take a year or more. Rather than letting him wait in jail without treatment, his lawyer worked with the prosecutor to resolve the case with an offer to plea on information. Within 30 days the client entered a sober living facility. 

More people enter the Mississippi Department of Corrections on a probation or parole revocation than on a new crime. That decision — often triggered by a technical violation, not a new offense — frequently happens without anyone in the room whose job is to argue for an alternative. Attorneys carrying caseloads that already exceed what one person can manage do not have the capacity to prepare for revocation hearings the way those hearings deserve. 

The result is that one of the largest drivers of admissions growth in Mississippi is also one of the least examined: not new criminal conduct, but the absence of adequate representation at the moment a person’s supervision status is being decided. We don’t know how many people are going to prison who should be going to a technical violation center, but we know of three people who were able to secure pro bono counsel from prison have had wrongful revocations reversed. 

The same logic applies earlier in the process. Adequate indigent defense requires support services such as social workers, mitigation specialists, investigators. Without them, attorneys cannot identify the clients who would be better served by an intervention court, a treatment program or a diversion option.

The Hinds County Public Defender Office has demonstrated what’s possible: county and private grant funding supported a social worker and two advocate positions, which established partnerships with community mental health and housing providers to secure alternatives to incarceration for clients who would otherwise have waited in jail.

What Mississippi needs is a state-level mandate establishing clear, enforceable standards that apply in every jurisdiction: standards for compensation and expenses, for workload, for when counsel first meets a client, for continuity of representation through all stages of a case. It requires front-end resources where counsel and support services are engaged early, when the trajectory of a case is most open to change.

The 2014 legislation demonstrated that Mississippi can bend these trends when it addresses their structural causes. The task force that produced those recommendations understood that incarceration is the end of a process, not the beginning of one, and that sustainable change requires intervening earlier in that process.

The trends that legislation was designed to address have since reasserted themselves.

The question before the 2027 session is whether Mississippi is prepared to look at the full length of that process, including the quality of representation available to people who cannot afford to hire a lawyer, and act on what the legal counsel finds.

André de Gruy is the state defender at Mississippi’s Office of state Public Defender. He established the first state-funded trial level public defender office in Mississippi in 2001 and served on the Corrections and Criminal Justice Task Force whose recommendations became House Bill 585 in the 2014 legislative session.

Eager to lessen the chaos of the transfer portal era and court fights with players trying to extend their careers, the NCAA approved a new eligibility model for Division I athletes that will allow five seasons of competition over a five-year period that begins with their full-time enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs first.

The Division I Cabinet on Tuesday unanimously approved the change from the longstanding tenet of college sports that gave athletes five years to complete four seasons of competition with their eligibility clock starting at the time of enrollment, regardless of age.

The move will all but eliminate waivers or redshirt years for extended eligibility except for religious missions, maternity leave or active-duty military service. No longer will extensions be considered for athletes who are injured.

“While previous NCAA rules have served college sports well for a long time, we heard also loud and clear from NCAA members and student-athletes that eligibility rules should be easier to understand,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said.

The NCAA believes the age-based model will make rules easier to administer and help make roster management more predictable for coaches.

“I think this new rule is one of the most sensible things the NCAA has ever done, and it will absolutely eliminate the type of eligibility litigation that’s predominated lately,” said attorney Tom Mars, who represented Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss in his successful quest for an additional year of eligibility in a case that went to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Mars added, “Let me put it in bottom-line language: There’s no way somebody could file an eligibility case based on a medical waiver now with the new rule. Can’t be done. You can file it, I guess, but it will be immediately dismissed.”

The rules became official when the Cabinet adjourned its meetings on Wednesday and are set to take effect this fall. Division I includes more than 350 schools, some 200,000 athletes and, with football and basketball leading the way, is by far the most lucrative of the three in the NCAA.

The five-in-five language also is included in Senate legislation intended to address numerous concerns across college sports and comes after a wave of lawsuits from athletes seeking to extend their college careers and ability to earn money through revenue sharing and name, image and likeness deals. Still to be seen is whether the new rules will withstand legal scrutiny alongside the existing challenges.

Heisman Trophy runner-up and Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia remains the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging an NCAA rule counting seasons spent at junior colleges against players’ Division I eligibility time. That case is slated for trial in February.

“I wouldn’t say that the rule change itself will slow lawsuits down,” said Sam Ehrlich, a Boise State assistant professor of legal studies in business and management who tracks litigation against the NCAA.

Ehrlich said athletes very well could continue to petition courts for extended eligibility based on antitrust arguments, but appellate courts recently have delivered wins for the NCAA by overturning preliminary injunctions in several cases.

The new eligibility model will affect all athletes who enroll in 2027-28. Currently enrolled athletes with eligibility after the 2025-26 academic year, and those who are incoming freshmen this fall, can apply the age-based model or continue under previous eligibility rules. It would be advantageous this year for some incoming freshman hockey players to use the traditional model if they are coming from the junior ranks and are 20, as is common in the sport.

For schools with current athletes who may be eligible for hardship waivers or extensions of eligibility under current rules, the D-I Cabinet indicated the deadline to submit requests to the NCAA is July 31. After that date, waivers would no longer be available.

Ryan Downton, the attorney for Pavia in his case against the NCAA that won him a sixth year of eligibility last season, said he was happy to see athletes allowed five seasons of competition. But he said it was likely that high school class of 2022 athletes who are now cut off from further competition will go to court.

“These athletes are still within their five-year eligibility window and spent their entire college careers competing against fifth- and sixth-year players due to the COVID waiver,” Downton wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “We hope the courts will correct the unfairness of the NCAA’s ruling and allow class of 2022 players to play their fifth season in 2026-27.”

Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College Players Association, wrote in a text to the AP that he had not seen the final language that was adopted but that the rule’s “general structure that has been discussed is within reason.”

“But it’s important for athletes to have an opportunity to seek hardship waivers,” he wrote.

Residents across Mississippi this weekend may have to shift from dodging water to dodging the sun.

Just as flooding from Tropical Storm Arthur has waned, the state could see dangerous levels of heat this weekend and early next week, the National Weather Service said Thursday. Heightening that risk is moisture left by the flooding that could increase humidity.

Starting Saturday and until at least next Thursday, parts of Mississippi could see a heat index between 105 and 110 degrees. The conditions could cause heat-related illnesses, NWS Jackson Lead Meteorologist David Cox said.

“So you definitely need to hydrate, always check your cars, make sure no one’s left inside,” Cox said.

NWS issues a heat advisory when the heat index reaches 105 degrees because that’s when there starts to be an increase in such illnesses, he said. The index differs from the regular temperature because it takes humidity into account.

According to NWS forecasts, a number of places could see a heat index of 110 starting early next week, including Jackson, Vicksburg, Greenville, Greenwood and Hattiesburg.

In Jackson, the Pearl River reached its minor flood stage on Monday, but the water level has dropped since Tuesday. Monticello also saw minor flooding, but the level there will start to drop Friday morning, according to the local river gauge.

Updated damage reports released Wednesday show that 248 homes were damaged by Tropical Storm Arthur, which first hit Mississippi late last week. Of those, 15 were destroyed and 79 received major damage. One person, in Franklin County, died in the aftermath. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency gave a breakdown of damages by county, noting these numbers are still subject to change:

• Harrison County – 183 homes, 9 businesses, 8 roads
• Pearl River County – 35 homes, 1 business, 6 roads
• Hancock County – 21 homes, 1 farm, 5 roads, 1 bridge
• Covington County – 5 homes, 1 business, 10 roads
• Rankin County – 2 homes
• Wilkinson County – 1 home, 1 road
• George County – 1 home, 7 roads, 1 bridge
• Stone County – 1 business, 28 roads

Affected areas are accepting donations, specifically buckets, bleach, rags, paper towels, mops, and other cleaning supplies, MEMA said Wednesday. The donation center — at the Fairgrounds Armory at 1207 Mississippi St. in Jackson — will stay open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. as needed.