Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

Students wear face masks as they sit in a classroom on the first day of school at Neshoba County Central Middle School, Wednesday, August 5, 2020.

More than 23,000 fewer students are enrolled in Mississippi public schools this year than last year, and a spokesperson for the state Department of Education did not answer when asked where the students went.

Public school enrollment in Mississippi has steadily declined in recent years, but the most recent school year (2020-2021) shows 23,286 fewer students are enrolled in the public school system this year compared to 2019-2020 — a 5% decrease from last school year.

Kayleigh Skinner/Mississippi Today

State Superintendent Carey Wright

On Monday, State Superintendent Carey Wright said at an online event hosted by Mississippi State University’s Stennis Institute of Government and the Capitol Press Corps that the Mississippi Department of Education was looking into the matter.

Wright said the department is working to gather data about the number of students who have gone to different options, such as private school or home schooling. She plans to meet with attendance officials within the department later this week, she said.

“We are directing districts to have school attendance officers to track down any child who was in school last year and not in school this year to find out where they are,” Wright said. “My goal is to make sure they are in a learning environment. If parents decided to do home school, or private school, that is certainly their choice. What’s not the choice is to just not do anything.”

State law requires all children (ages 6-17) to be enrolled by a parent or legal guardian in public school or a “a state approved, nonpublic (private school), or educating the child at home in an organized educational program.” Additionally, 5-year-olds enrolled in kindergarten are also subject to the same rules outlined in the law.

When asked if the department knew where thousands of students went, a spokesperson directed Mississippi Today where to look at year to year comparisons in enrollment data.

“We know the pandemic has impacted schools across the country, including in Mississippi,” the MDE spokesperson said in an email. “That is why School Attendance Officers (SAO) are working with school districts to identify compulsory school-age children whose families have not re-enrolled them in local public schools and have not submitted a home school enrollment form to their local SAO.”

This school year is unprecedented in that the coronavirus pandemic has forced districts to revise how they deliver instruction. Though some still offer traditional in-person schooling, many are entirely virtual or use a hybrid model, making it difficult at times for some schools to keep track of where students are.

Jefferson Davis County High School was one of the schools that opted for virtual learning. But it has been challenging to teach and reach students due to internet and transportation issues, said Taylor Copeland, high school social studies and French teacher. Copeland, a first year teacher at Jefferson Davis, teaches 109 ninth graders in her history classes and 14 students in her French class.

Only 25 show up consistently for their Google Meet class sessions. The majority of her students have been issued packets and some students have not been reached at all, she said.  

“A number of students we’ve reached out to with calls, home visits, and not doing the work at all … I understand some are very self motivated and parent motivated and some, they’re 14-years-old,” Copeland said in a Zoom interview. “I could be teaching all 109 of my students, but that’s not the reality.”

This year 442,627 students are enrolled in public schools. This figure represents average daily attendance as of Sept. 30, or the average number of enrolled students who attend school each day.

The largest drops in enrollment occurred in the younger grades, with pre-K and kindergarten each seeing more than 10 percent changes.

“The annual decline in student enrollment corresponds to a decline in the overall population of the state,” the department told Mississippi Today. “Mississippi and states throughout the country are seeing larger-than-expected drops in enrollment this year, particularly in the early grades beginning with pre-K.”

Kate Royals contributed to this report.

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Will Hall, a “Mississippi boy,” has returned to his home state as the new head football coach at Southern Miss.

From all angles, Will Hall appears a perfect fit and a home run hire at Southern Miss.

Let’s start with his family and friends. Bobby Hall, his dad, is one of the most successful high school football coaches in Mississippi history. Marcus Boyles, his first babysitter, is another highly successful coach at nearby Petal. Drew Causey, the head coach at Class 6A powerhouse Oak Grove, is one of his best friends and college teammate.

That’s just for starters. There are plenty more.

Says Bobby Hall, “There’s not a high school coach in Mississippi that Will or I don’t know.”

Rick Cleveland

Says Boyles, who babysat Will Hall when Will was still in diapers at Raleigh, “I have followed him his entire life. He’s been around great coaches his entire life, including his dad. He’s been a head coach himself. He’s recruited Mississippi successfully everywhere he’s been. He’s built relationships with Mississippi coaches. He’s won everywhere he’s been.”

Get this: Three of Boyles’ former Petal players were recruited to Tulane by Will Hall, the Green Wave offensive coordinator the past two seasons. All three are starters. They were not recruited by Southern Miss. Those players helped Tulane beat Southern Miss 66-24 in Hattiesburg earlier this season. Hall’s offense ran for 427 yards with a starting freshman right tackle, Trey Tuggle, Hall recruited out of Mize.

When Hall was an assistant at Memphis, he recruited Yazoo County’s Kenny Gainwell, who probably was the best player in Mississippi as a senior and who had over 2,200 all-purpose yards last season for the Tigers.

When he was at West Alabama, Hall recruited and coached Malcolm Butler out of Vicksburg. Butler famously became a Super Bowl hero. Ty Keyes, a highly recruited quarterback out of Taylorsville, is a Tulane commit, again recruited by Will Hall.

There are many more of those Mississippi recruiting success stories, too, but you get the idea.

Says Causey, who has his Oak Grove Warriors in the Class 6A Championship game again this weekend, “Whether he was at West Alabama or West Georgia or Louisiana-Lafayette or Tulane, Will has always recruited Mississippi hard and he has always gotten good players. He has a lot of connections in Mississippi. And nobody will outwork him.”

Bobby Hall, again: “Will is a Mississippi boy through and through. He eats, sleeps and drinks football. He was with me at practices from when he was in kindergarten until when he played for me.”

There’s a story there. Will Hall was his dad’s quarterback, leading Amory to a Class 3A state championship. He could run it and he could throw it. But he was 5 feet, 9 inches short. No colleges recruited him. Itawamba, the JUCO that had the first pick of Amory players back then, didn’t want him, either. Bobby Hall sent a film to legendary Northwest Community College coach Bobby Ray Franklin asking him if he could use a quarterback. Franklin watched and said yes, he surely could.

At Northwest, Will Hall set records and was a two-time All American. Still, there were no D-I offers, so Will Hall went to North Alabama where he won the Harlon Hill Trophy, Division II’s equivalent of the Heisman Trophy.

Said Causey, who was a guard on that team, “Will was short for a quarterback, but he was very, very talented – and more than that, he was a great leader. The team believed in him. And he always praised his offensive line, so he had that going for him.”

North Alabama won 13 games and made the national semis his senior year.

Will Hall helped Tulane win 66-24 at Southern Miss in September.

Will Hall’s coaching career has been much the same: He started small and worked his way up, proving himself at each level. He coached quarterbacks at Presbyterian and Henderson State and then was the offensive coordinator at Southwest Baptist. Then, it was on to Arkansas-Monticello as offensive coordinator there, and from there to West Alabama where he spent three years as offensive coordinator before becoming the head coach.

In the tough Gulf South Conference, the SEC of Division II, he won 56 and lost 21 as the head coach of both West Alabama and West Georgia. He won league titles and was Coach of the Year both places.

All the while, Will Hall told me in a brief conversation Tuesday afternoon, Southern Miss was a job he coveted.

“I know the history there, I know you can win there, and I always felt like it would be a good fit for me,” he said. “We’re gonna get it rolling again, step by step, handshake by handshake. I can’t wait.”

Bobby Hall, admittedly prejudiced, believes his son will win – and big – at Southern Miss.

“Will wants to be there,” Bobby Hall said. “He wants to be the head football coach at Southern Miss. That really makes a difference.”

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Bettye Bell keeps a photo of her son Charoyd, who is incarcerated at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, on the mantle in the living room of her home in Natchez. “I don’t know that (EMCF officials are) doing anything…All I can tell you is as a mom, it’s very stressful,” she said. Photo provided by the Bell family.

Bettye Bell talked to her son, Charoyd Bell, on the phone for just five minutes before he had to hang up.

During the Sept. 28 phone call she took from her home in Natchez, Bettye Bell learned from her son, who is currently incarcerated at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF) in Lauderdale County, that the prison was on lockdown due to some people in his unit testing positive for COVID-19.

According to her son, a lockdown doesn’t mean much.

“They’re not able to social distance that I’m aware of. They’re all co-mingled, be they have (COVID-19) or not. So that’s not safe,” Bettye Bell said. “I don’t know that (EMCF officials) are doing anything extra in terms of providing medicines or whatever to help. I can’t say that they’re doing any of that. All I can tell you is as a mom, it’s very stressful.”

As COVID-19 numbers in Mississippi continue to climb and stretch hospitals, health care workers and others to the limit, family members say they’re concerned about the health and safety of their loved ones who are incarcerated within the state’s overcrowded prison system and feel left in the dark by prison officials.

As of Nov. 30, MDOC reported 902 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among the incarcerated population and 1,380 incarcerated individuals who have tested negative. These figures include cases in both state facilities and private ones, like EMCF.

With more than 17,000 Mississippians incarcerated by the Mississippi Department of Corrections, the department’s reporting shows that about 5% of the state’s total prison population has tested positive for the coronavirus.

CDC guidelines state if someone has COVID-19, the person must separate from other people as much as possible, must wear a mask, stay six feet away from other people and seek medical attention.

Charoyd Bell, left, told his mother, Bettye Bell, center, and sister, Brittany Bell, right, that there was an outbreak in his prison, EMCF, in September, but MDOC has reported only one outbreak at the Marshall County Correctional Facility in November since the coronavirus pandemic began in early March. Photo provided by the Bell family.

MDOC lists on its website certain protocols that are in place to protect the incarcerated population and the department’s employees, and the guidelines include providing masks and disinfecting measures.

“Social distancing should be practiced as much as possible for both staff and inmates. Staff and inmates are encouraged to follow health guidelines from the CDC,” MDOC’s website states.

“I feel like the issue here is that because these people are incarcerated, they are not deemed worthy to have the same amount of protections that we are out here even though they are in even more closely confined spaces with even less capability to social distance on their own,” said Charoyd Bell’s sister Brittany Bell, a Natchez native who currently resides in Washington, D.C.

Mississippi Today contacted MDOC four times with specific questions about what type of masks are distributed and how often and whether MDOC is actively encouraging and enforcing social distancing in their facilities. The department did not respond to any of those requests. In a press release earlier this year, MDOC Commissioner Burl Cain said that the state department has been working with private prison operators to conduct testing “to try to prevent any introduction of the virus into our facilities.”

“We have been working with… private operators all year trying to prevent outbreaks by performing strict testing of each person who enters the facilities while enforcing masks, social distancing, and constant sanitization,” Cain said. “We have separated and quarantined all affected inmates and have stopped all movements between prisons.”

Although Charoyd Bell, who’s been incarcerated at EMCF in Lauderdale County since December 2019, told his mother and sister there was an outbreak in his prison in September, MDOC has reported only one outbreak at the Marshall County Correctional Facility in November since the coronavirus pandemic began in early March.

According to MDOC, at least 69 incarcerated Mississippians have died in MDOC custody since March, with the most recent death reported by the department on Nov. 30. 

Troy Guidroz, 75, was incarcerated at Mississippi State Penitentiary and had been hospitalized since June. He died on Nov. 25, and MDOC has not yet determined whether Guidroz’s death or any of the other 68 deaths were be caused by COVID-19.

“Are we getting all of the information, one, of what’s happening in the prison system? And two, is the system doing its best job to keep these people healthy and safe?” Brittany Bell said.

Bettye Bell sent a letter to MDOC Commissioner Burl Cain in July asking for her son’s early release and home arrest due to his pre-existing conditions and status as a non-violent offender. Charoyd Bell, pictured, is still incarcerated at EMCF, and Bettye Bell has still not heard back from MDOC. Photo provided by the Bell family.

In May 2020, the Mississippi Center for Justice, the MacArthur Justice Center and the ACLU of Mississippi filed a class action lawsuit against MDOC for the department’s “inadequate response to the COVID-19 pandemic at Mississippi’s two largest prisons — Central Mississippi Correctional Facility (CMCF) and South Mississippi Correctional Institute (SMCI),” where more than 5,350 Mississippians are currently incarcerated.

The lawsuit stated that the two prisons were overcrowded and that individuals who had reported having COVID-19 symptoms were not immediately tested or isolated to prevent the spread of the virus.

Mississippians incarcerated at CMCF in Pearl and SMCI near Leakesville were described as living among rows of bunk beds only four feet apart with shared access to toilets, sinks and showers and limited access to hot water and soap, according to the lawsuit.

“Some of the cell blocks are open bays, so it’s basically just a really big room where you have 50 to 100 people in there all just packed in there with no separation, no individual private space,” said Joshua Tom, legal director of the ACLU of Mississippi. “On top of that, you have the inability to keep common spaces and their personal bunk spaces clean due to the lack of sufficient cleaning supplies and lack of sufficient soap. And those are just to name a few things.”

The lawsuit also highlighted that many people in prison are elderly and have pre-existing conditions such as HIV, high blood pressure and cholesterol, asthma and cancer, making them especially susceptible to COVID-19, stating that they are at an “increased risk of contracting, becoming severely ill from, and/or dying from COVID-19.”

Bettye Bell sent a letter to MDOC and Cain, the commissioner, in July 2020 asking for her son’s early release and home arrest because of his pre-existing health conditions. Her son Charoyd Bell, a non-violent offender who was convicted in 2019 of cruelty to animals, larceny and possession of a weapon, has high blood pressure, obesity and hereditary heart issues. She still has not received word from MDOC or Cain, despite U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s recommendation of home arrest for at-risk and non-violent offenders within the prison system.

“There’s no way that (the prison system is) going to do what needs to be done to save (Charoyd’s) life if he does get sick,” Bettye Bell said.

In August 2020, MDOC, ACLU, the MacArthur Justice Center and the Mississippi Center for Justice reached an agreement with MDOC on the grounds that the department would implement certain safety protocols to better protect incarcerated Mississippians, though MDOC has not been transparent in how active these measures currently are.

“It should be the Mississippi Department of Corrections and all of the prison systems’ priority to make sure that it’s the safest, the cleanest, whatever it can be and definitely not the co-mingling of incarcerated persons who have COVID-19 and those who don’t,” Brittany Bell said. “That just seems like a complete and clear disregard for life.”

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COVID-19 cases: Mississippi reports 2,457 new cases

By Alex Rozier and Erica Hensley | December 2, 2020

We are bringing you the latest COVID-19 Mississippi trends with daily case, death and hospitalization updates, as well as testing data charts and other helpful interactive maps and graphs.

This page was last updated Wednesday, December 2:

New cases: 2,457| New Deaths: 15

Total Hospitalizations: 1,158

Total cases: 156,868| Total Deaths: 3,851

Mask Mandates | On Sept. 30, Gov. Tate Reeves ended the statewide mask mandate order, originally issued Aug. 4. Since then, he has added a total of 54 individual county mask mandates, covering half of the state. State health officials encourage widespread masking and credit the original mandate with helping cases improve after a steep summer spike. View the full list of COVID-19 orders here.

All data and information reported by the Mississippi State Department of Health as of 6 p.m. yesterday

Weekly update: Wednesday, December 2

After a record reporting of 2,457 new cases on Wednesday, the current seven-day average of 1,605 is now far past Mississippi’s summer peak. 

During a news conference yesterday, Gov. Tate Reeves denied that Mississippi had hit a new record for case spread, even though the rolling average had already surpassed the previous high of 1,381 in the summer. 

On Wednesday, the state health department issued new guidelines on distancing, recommending that people avoid all social gatherings with people outside of their home or nuclear family.

Mississippi also hit a new high for confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations on both Sunday and Monday, with the rolling average having increased 68% since the start of November. The rolling averages for ICU patients and people on ventilators are up 45% and 88%, respectively, in that time. Total hospitalizations, which includes suspected and confirmed cases, are still below the record set in August. 

Thirteen major hospitals are without ICU capacity, according to this week’s health department numbers. Currently, 86% of the state’s ICU beds are full — including 96% capacity among the highest level COVID-care centers — and COVID-19 patients are filling 30% of those spots.

On the county level, Choctaw (17% increase in the last week), Kemper (15%), Rankin (14%), Jefferson (12%) and Stone (12%) counties saw the sharpest rise in cases this last week. 

The Delta continues to accumulate the most cases per capita out of anywhere in the state. Of the 15 counties with the highest rates, 11 are in the Delta. 

The state health department reported 128,746 people have recovered. 

Click through the links below to view our interactive charts describing the trends around the coronavirus in Mississippi:

View our COVID-19 resource page for more information about coronavirus in Mississippi.

The post COVID-19 cases: Mississippi reports 2,457 new cases appeared first on Mississippi Today.

West Point, shown here celebrating in 2019, is among several perennial Mississippi high school championship towns. (Photo courtesy of Keith Warren. Illustration by Bethany Atkinson.)

The Mississippi high school football state championships return to Veterans Memorial Stadium this weekend for the first time since 2013. For many, it will be like a family reunion.

That’s because for many of the participants, the state championship weekend has become an annual event. It is almost as if perennial powerhouses, such as Class 5A West Point, Class 4A Louisville, Class 3A Noxubee County, Class 2A’s Taylorsville and Calhoun City and Class 1A Lumberton, could make their travel plans a year in advance. In Class 6A, Oak Grove will play Oxford for the championship, just as they did last year.

In Mississippi football hotbeds such as West Point and Louisville and Taylorsville and Bassfield, winning is passed on from generation to generation. These boys will be playing for a championship, just as their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers did.

And that brings up the question: Why is this the case? Is there something in the water? Why do some communities and towns produce champions year after year, decade after decade, while other communities do so rarely, if ever?

In other words: What makes a football town?

I wanted to know. I asked around.

Rick Cleveland, Mississippi Today

Mike Justice

“I’ll just tell you what I think,” said retired coach Mike Justice, who coached state champions at Calhoun City, Louisville and Madison Central. “The players develop a habit a winning, and they keep doing it, and eventually they win big. The younger kids, the kids in elementary school, grow up going to the games and looking up to those high school kids. This is especially true in the smaller towns. They see the adulation the players get. They want some of that themselves. It is self-perpetuating.

“In small towns in Mississippi, a high school football star on a winning team is as well-known as anybody in town,” Justice continued. “The little kids see that. That becomes a goal.”

Both Justice and M.C. Miller, who won championships at Noxubee County and Louisville, believe that winning becomes a habit and can be passed down from class to class, generation to generation. Miller, 73, played his high school football before integration at Camile Street High in Louisville.

Rick Cleveland

M.C. Miller, here interviewed after Louisville’s 2018 state championship victory.

“We were winning big,” Miller said. “On the other side of town, Louisville, the white school, was winning big. And when they put them together, they kept on winning. Winning can be a habit.”

Indeed. Vince Lombardi once wrote a book: “Winning is a Habit.”

“Winning is not a sometimes thing,” Lombardi once said. “It’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while. You don’t do the right thing once in a while. You do them right all the time time. Winning is a habit.”

Justice put it another way: “You can write this same story 20 or 30 years from now and these same towns, towns like Louisville, Calhoun City and West Point will be part of it. It’s important to those people. You don’t worry about getting your players to practice hard in those places. They get after it. That’s all they know.”

Another factor, both Justice and Miller say, is those players, in those towns, expect to win – almost like a birthright.

Justice: “Here’s the deal when you play a bunch like Calhoun City. They know how to win. They ain’t gonna give it to you. You’re gonna have to whip them. You’re gonna have to whip their ass. And that ain’t gonna be an easy chore. Never has been.”

You look over the match-ups for the six championship games and you see so much football tradition – but you also see one interloper, one team that doesn’t really fit the mold. That would be Class 1A Biggersville, which will be playing for a state championship for the first time ever. Biggersville is far up in Hill Country, six miles from Corinth, a three-and-a-half hour drive from Jackson. Like most schools in that part of the state, basketball always has been the sport of choice. The school also has had some baseball and track and field success. There have been athletes there, but they just didn’t always play football.

But every tradition has to start somewhere and it surely appears veteran coach Stan Platt has started one in football at Biggersville. When he arrived in the summer of 2016, he had eight players – eight! He had to recruit the school’s hallways and the other Biggersville athletic teams. He found enough players to finish 4-7 that first season. But he also inherited an eighth grade team that finished 8-0, and he coached that team, too.

Daily Journal

Biggersville coach Stan Platt

Those eighth graders are now seniors. They were 8-4 as freshmen, 12-2 as sophomores, 10-2 as juniors and now 13-0 as seniors.

“You know when we won four games that first season it was like we had conquered the world,” Platt said. “Now, these seniors are 43 and 8 over the past four seasons. And we’ve had some good classes behind them.”

The community has bought in. “We’ve had great support from the administration,” Platt said. “The baseball and basketball coaches have helped. Every Friday, a different church in the community brings us meals. We’ve got great support. And our fans travel. We’ll have a big following in Jackson.”

So will Lumberton. They’ve been doing this for years.

The post What makes a football town in Mississippi? Get your answer here – and at The Vet. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Despite growing pressure and criticism from health experts, Gov. Tate Reeves on Tuesday doubled down on his opposition to a statewide mask mandate, instead adding counties piecemeal to his mask-wearing order as Mississippi’s COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations soar.

Reeves added 13 counties to his executive order for wearing masks in public and restricting social gatherings, bringing the total to 54 of the state’s 82 counties.

“We know what works,” Reeves said. “We know wearing a mask works … There are those who believe that if there are three words on a piece of paper — statewide mask mandate — that will solve everything … I just don’t believe having a statewide mask mandate and never replacing it has the same impact than if you add counties … The best way for us to get the most people to participate is going county by county.”

Reeves last week said he wasn’t going to kowtow to “so-called experts” calling for a statewide mask mandate. Those calling for such an order last week included Dr. LouAnn Woodward, who leads the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the state’s only academic health center and largest hospital.

The same day, Woodward issued a joint letter with the Mississippi State Medical Association (MSMA) and Mississippi’s chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Academy of Family Physicians calling on a statewide mask order. After Reeves rejected the request last week, MSMA issued a second more urgent letter calling for a wider mandate.

“When leaders fail to lead, then we often see a poor performance from those who are attempting to follow,” said Dr. Mark Horne, the MSMA president. “The anti-mask, anti-personal distancing, anti-anything to slow the spread of the disease is an article of faith. And faith is not subject to fact…

“With the holiday season and winter weather approaching, we are certain that our state’s healthcare system cannot sustain the trajectory of the pandemic in its current state,” the letter continued. “To combat the devastating effects of COVID-19, we must act immediately and, in the best interest of the health of all Mississippians, by reissuing a statewide mask mandate through the remainder of the year.”

Reeves on Sept. 30 lifted a statewide mask mandate — making Mississippi the first state to rescind such a mandate — that he had issued on Aug. 4, and he relaxed restrictions on social gatherings. Since then, cases have risen.

During the span of the statewide mask mandate, Mississippi cases plummeted, dropping by 54%. Since then, though, Reeves has repeatedly said he wants as many people as possible to mask, but he just differs from medical experts on the best way to make that happen.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves has resisted statewide mask mandate despite warnings from health officials and alarming COVID-19 trends. 

Reeves told reporters Tuesday it was “fundamentally inaccurate” that the state is exceeding previous COVID-19 records. That statement from the governor is false: The rolling average number of daily cases — 1,410 cases as of Tuesday — has surpassed summer peaks, single-day cases hit an all-time peak Nov. 21 at 1,972, and total hospitalizations have hit single-day records as well.

The governor on Tuesday pointed to skyrocketing cases nationwide, saying, “We’re rising less rapidly than other states.” Though the state no longer contends for the nation’s highest per capita daily cases, only 11 states are currently rising faster than the Mississippi, according to The COVID Tracking Project data. While the state’s daily cases are not as high as other states, Mississippi’s growth in those cases over the last two weeks is outpacing most others.

Reeves has also said he is reluctant to use “the heavy hand of government” to tell people what to do in the pandemic. He has, in turn, been criticized by those who support statewide mask and other orders and by those who oppose any government mandates such as the county-by-county approach.

Reeves’ criteria for adding counties to the mask mandate are those who, over a two-week period, have over 200 new cases — as well as 200 cases per 100,00 people — or over 500 cases per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, Mississippi as a whole has met both those marks since last week.

The state on Monday and Tuesday set records for the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19, with 1,057 on Tuesday and 1,008 on Monday. State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, who joined Reeves’ Tuesday press conference, said earlier in the day at a health department press conference that the state’s hospital system is stressed. Dobbs said 12 major hospitals across the state have zero ICU beds available.

“Patients cannot get transferred to a higher level of care when they need it,” Dobbs said, because of the ICU bed shortage. While some of the state’s largest medical centers have had tight ICU space for some time, the trend is pushing down the chain to regional and lower-level hospitals. As mid-level hospitals see ICU crowding, the state’s “one-way” trauma system — where patients should only go up to higher levels of care — risks disruption.

Though COVID-19 ICU-use is not currently at July peak levels, overall COVID-19 hospitalizations are peaking for single-day records and nearing peak average levels. Hospitalizations are compounding much faster than they did heading into the summer spikes.

On Oct. 3, average total hospitalizations were at their lowest point since the health department started tracking them. It took just seven weeks to grow by 85% — from the state’s lowest point to the end of November peak single day hospitalizations, approaching summer overall levels. The same average hospitalizations growth took much longer — 12 weeks — to get from low April levels to July peak.

University of Mississippi Medical Center is currently the only hospital in Jackson with ICU beds, and their COVID-19 wards are growing quickly. ICU patients with the coronavirus have grown by 57% there in the last week alone.

The counties Reeves added to his mask-wearing mandate on Tuesday are: Quitman, Jefferson, Franklin, Noxubee, Kemper, Amite, Coahoma, Sunflower, Scott, Adams, Oktibbeha, Monroe and Washington.

Counties that were already under the orders are: Alcorn, Attala, Bolivar, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Jefferson Davis, Jones, Lafayette, Lawrence, Lincoln, Lowndes, Neshoba, Panola, Perry, Prentiss, Stone, Tippah, Tishomingo, Union, Hinds, Madison, Pontotoc, Tate, Winston, Itawamba and Montgomery. Counties that were already under the mandate: Benton, Carroll, Covington, DeSoto, Forrest, Harrison, Humphreys, Jackson, Lamar, Lauderdale, Leflore, Lee, Marshall, Rankin, and Yalobusha.

The post Gov. Reeves again rejects statewide mask mandate, downplays soaring COVID-19 numbers appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A legislative watchdog committee is questioning why the board overseeing charter schools in Mississippi renewed the contract of an underperforming school in Jackson earlier this year.

In April, the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board issued a three-year renewal contract to Midtown Public Charter School in Jackson — despite the fact the school has not exceeded a ‘D’ rating since it first opened in 2015. 

Charter schools in Mississippi must meet certain goals to continue to operate and are considered for renewal every five years, according to state law.

In its report, the Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) committee cited an evaluation of Mississippi’s charter school performance measures done by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers earlier this year. 

“MCSAB’s (charter school) renewal policies … weaken the rigor of the renewal process. For example, an underperforming school may be renewed based solely on one year of performance without consideration of earlier years of critically low performance,” stated the report. “MCSAB granted renewal to Midtown Public although it did not meet the terms of the performance framework. Further, MCSAB’s conditions of renewal are not rigorous and rely on expectations of future improvement.” 

“Performance framework” refers to the accountability mechanism for charter schools in the state. It is made up of several components, including markers of a school’s academic, financial and organizational performance.

Lisa Karmacharya, executive director of the authorizer board, said the short answer is that the board was following the recommendations of both internal and external evaluators when it made the decision.

The conditions of Midtown’s renewal include that the school must: establish performance targets with the board; be rated a “D” or higher in 2021, and a “C” or higher in both 2022 and 2023; and enroll the number of underserved students in accordance with state law. It also must “restructure its governance plan to ensure all board members are knowledgeable” of the contract between the board and the school and must align its future fiscal plan to improving student outcomes. 

“I think we are moving along really well, all things considered with COVID-19,” said Karmacharya of the progress being made by Midtown, noting the school and board have established performance targets and Midtown is now serving above the required percentage of underserved students.

“We can see they are making progress,” she said.

The PEER report also noted that while the board has improved its oversight of a federal grant designed to help states open more charter schools, it continues to be “significantly behind” in its projected grant expenditures at this point. It has spent only 12% of the $15 million in funds at the time of the report, despite the board’s expectation to have spent nearly half of its funds by this time.

Karmacharya, who stepped into the role of executive director in the beginning of 2019, said because the board had no executive director for around nine months, no claims were being submitted to the board by the charter schools receiving some of the funds.

In addition, only six charter schools are currently in operation, and a relatively small number of operators have applied to open schools in recent years.

“The first drawdown from that $15 million grant wasn’t until 2019,” she said. “And with respect to an overall lower number of (charter school operator) applicants has resulted in fewer approvals (of charter schools) which impacts the number of subgrant recipients.”

The 2019 version of the PEER report highlighted the same issue. In its response, the board noted there are no restrictions on carrying over funds from year to year and it would be requesting a no-cost extension in the fifth year of the grant. 

The PEER committee also highlighted an inequitable share of local per-pupil funding between traditional public and charter schools, with charter schools receiving more.

“In the case of JPSD (Jackson Public School District) for school year 2019-2020, charter schools operating within the district received a per pupil local ad valorem amount of $3,011.84 while JPSD received a perp pupil local ad valorem amount of $2,774.12, a difference of $237.72 per pupil.” 

Public charter schools in Mississippi are funded by the state on a per-pupil basis according to the school’s average daily attendance, or the number of students who attend 63 percent or more of a school day. They also receive local dollars from ad valorem tax receipts. When a student enrolls in a charter school, money that would have gone to the public school district moves with the student to the charter school. 

As a result, the committee recommended that the board and the Mississippi Department of Education should submit a proposed amendment to state law in order to ensure local ad valorem funding is equal among students. 

The Mississippi Legislature passed its charter school law in 2013. During the 2019 school year, six charter schools — five in Jackson and one in Clarksdale — served a total over 1,992 students.

The post Report questions why underperforming charter school was renewed appeared first on Mississippi Today.

State Auditor Shad White issued a nearly $2,000 demand to University of Mississippi professor James Thomas, who participated in a two-day “work stoppage” in early September.

Thomas, an outspoken sociology professor who has regularly drawn the public scorn of top statewide Republican elected officials, participated in a national walkout on Sept. 8-9 called the “Scholar Strike,” in which hundreds of faculty at universities across the nation protested police brutality and other racial inequities. Thomas called it a “work stoppage” on Twitter.

The $1,912.42 demand includes $946.74 for principal and $965.68 for interest and investigative costs, according to the auditor’s office.

“‘Concerted work stoppages’ and strikes are illegal under Mississippi’s no-strike law, and paying someone for not working violates Sections 66 and 96 of the state constitution,” White said in a press release. “It’s simple—the taxpayers of Mississippi cannot pay someone when they did not provide the good or service they were hired to provide.”

READ MORE: A UM professor skipped work to protest racial inequality. State auditor says he should be fired.

In the Tuesday press release, White chronicled his office’s investigation into the matter. He said auditors discovered Thomas did not return several students’ emails during the two days in early September.

“In short, he refused to perform his job duties, and his tuition-paying students suffered as a result,” White said. “The taxpayers and donors to the university suffered, too. When Prof. Thomas realized he was going to be called on the carpet for not performing these duties, he attempted to explain by saying, ‘100 percent of my job requires time spent thinking . . . . If I’m thinking I’m working.’”

White continued: “Thinking isn’t going to cut it with me. If an employee of the state auditor’s office came to me and said they would not be responding to my emails, they would not be at work, they would not be performing audits, they would not be available for calls, they would not be available for meetings, and that this was a work stoppage, but they would be thinking over the next two days, I would not pay them.”

READ MORE: Background of Mississippi’s strict law that forbids educators from striking.

White previously said the University of Mississippi should fire Thomas, writing that Thomas broke the law and the university should pursue termination. In his press release this week, the auditor said that termination considerations should be made by the 12-member board of trustees of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning.

Thomas could not be immediately reached by phone on Tuesday. White explained his reasoning for the investigation in a podcast interview with Mississippi Today in September.

PODCAST: Auditor Shad White defends recommendation that UM professor JT Thomas be fired for striking.

Thomas has been the subject of public scrutiny in the past. After conservatives called into question a tweet of Thomas’ last year, the state’s college board took the unprecedented step of considering whether to grant Thomas tenure in a closed-door meeting. Then-Gov. Phil Bryant weighed in, suggesting Thomas shouldn’t receive tenure. The board ultimately granted Thomas tenure, but conservatives made Thomas the poster of progressive ideals at the university.

Thomas’ attorney Rob McDuff released the following statement on Tuesday afternoon:

“Because of the pandemic and students varied schedules, Professor Thomas was not teaching specific classes on specific days last fall, but instead provided students with weekly lesson plans that included lectures he had recorded, reading assignments, quizzes, multimedia content, and other materials. While he joined college professors from around the country in a two day #ScholarStrike to call attention to racism and injustice, he worked the prior weekend and the Labor Day holiday to prepare the lesson plans.

During the two-day call to action, Professor Thomas also worked toward finishing a manuscript for publication. He missed no classes and was available to students both before and after the strike, as he is most weekdays, evenings, and weekends. Professor Thomas’s actions did not violate any law and he does not owe the State any money. If the Auditor wants to pay him extra for the personal days he has not used, the weekends and holidays he has worked over the years, including those he worked preparing the lesson plan that week, then maybe we can talk about whether he should pay any money because of his participation in the #ScholarStrike. Professor Thomas is a good teacher who works hard for his students and who earns his salary.”

The post Auditor issues $2,000 demand to UM professor who skipped work to protest racial inequality appeared first on Mississippi Today.

COVID-19 cases: Mississippi reports 1,141 new cases

By Alex Rozier and Erica Hensley | December 1, 2020

We are bringing you the latest COVID-19 Mississippi trends with daily case, death and hospitalization updates, as well as testing data charts and other helpful interactive maps and graphs.

This page was last updated Tuesday, December 1:

New cases: 1,141| New Deaths: 29

Total Hospitalizations: 1,115

Total cases: 154,411| Total Deaths: 3,836

Mask Mandates | On Sept. 30, Gov. Tate Reeves ended the statewide mask mandate order, originally issued Aug. 4. Since then, he has added a total of 41 individual county mask mandates, covering half of the state. State health officials encourage widespread masking and credit the original mandate with helping cases improve after a steep summer spike. View the full list of COVID-19 orders here.

All data and information reported by the Mississippi State Department of Health as of 6 p.m. yesterday

Weekly update: Wednesday, November 25

The seven-day new case average reached 1,294 last week, a 75% increase since the start of November and the highest mark since July 31. 

The health department has reported over 9,000 new cases in the last week; a threshold only surpassed by one other week in July.

The number of hospitalizations have also begun to surge in the last month; using the seven-day rolling averages, total hospitalizations have increased by 46% in that time, ICU patients by 39%, and patients on ventilators by 47%. 

Though hospitalizations haven’t reached peak July levels, they are growing at a quicker pace than before. On Oct. 3, average total hospitalizations were at their lowest point since the state health department started tracking them. In seven weeks, numbers grew by 85%. The same percent growth took 12 weeks from April to July, heading into the peak.

Overall, the state’s ICUs are 83% full, with COVID-19 patients comprising 31% of all ICU beds. Sixteen of the state’s highest level COVID-care centers are at 88% capacity, and six of them — both Baptist Memorial Hospitals in Southaven and in the Golden Triangle, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Baptist and Merit in Jackson, and the Delta Regional Medical Center in Greenville — have zero ICU beds available. 

Within the last three weeks, Mississippi has moved from “orange” to “red” on the Global Health Institute’s risk level tracker, meaning it now averages over 25 daily new cases per 100,000 residents, along with most of the country. Despite the rise in cases in the state, Mississippi now ranks 33rd in new cases per capita, dropping from 26th two weeks ago.

Counties across the state saw large increases in cases over the last week. Winston County (13% increase), Jefferson County (12%), Amite County (12%), Stone County (12%) and Choctaw County (11%) saw the biggest surges in that span. 

MSDH reports that 121,637 people have recovered. 

Click through the links below to view our interactive charts describing the trends around the coronavirus in Mississippi:

View our COVID-19 resource page for more information about coronavirus in Mississippi.

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