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The Holmes County Consolidated School District, one of the state’s most troubled districts that is under investigation by the state education department, has a new superintendent — a former principal who has never held a district-level position and has been in Holmes County less than two years.

Debra Powell, the new superintendent, is also a colleague of former Holmes County Superintendent James Henderson, whom she worked with in St. Louis Public Schools for several years. Henderson, who was Powell’s boss in St. Louis and hired her as a middle school and high school principal in Holmes County, came under fire in a scathing report by the state auditor’s office that revealed widespread problems in the district, including a lack of background checks for employees and misappropriation of funds. 

The audit resulted in the appointment of a financial adviser by the Mississippi Department of Education to take over the district’s finances. The district is also the subject of an investigative audit to ensure its complying with state and federal law in addition to accreditation standards.

The Board of Trustees last week voted 4-1 to appoint Powell as the superintendent beginning in the fall of this year. Before coming to Holmes County in 2019, Powell worked as the principal at Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri. Before that, she was principal of Vashon High School in St. Louis. The longest she ever served as principal at one school is two years.

Board President Louise Winters said she is not concerned by Powell’s connection to Henderson, and that the board chose the best candidate based on responses it received from a community survey.

“Dr. Powell was the closest to what the survey (responses) and our stakeholders wanted,” Winters said, noting there were over 20 candidates brought forth by the Mississippi School Board Association. The association conducted the search on behalf of the district, Winters said.

Powell will earn an annual salary of $125,000 to oversee the district of about 2,600 students, according to her contract. She is also eligible for a pay raise if both a state-approved teacher pay raise and “a performance-based measure of growth and student achievement” occurs.

She will also be provided a car “for her use in conducting the business of the district.”

Rayford Horton, the one “no” vote for Powell, said he believed other candidates had stronger records of improving struggling schools and districts. Holmes County has been rated as failing every year since 2016. School districts may be eligible for state takeover after two consecutive years of an ‘F’ rating, but Holmes County has so far escaped that fate.

Shella Head, president of the newly formed community engagement council for the school district, said at a board meeting she had concerns about how the board went about selecting the superintendent. 

“There’s nothing in her background to show she has supervised a school district, as in understanding the day-to-day operations, state and federal funding, test scores — all of the different variations you have to deal with to move a school district forward,” Head said. “Holmes County is in a critical situation. We don’t need on-the-job training … We need somebody who knows what they’re doing and has been proven to know what they’re doing.” 

It’s hard to say whether Powell improved students’ academic performance at the two schools where she was principal in Missouri. The state underwent a change in testing in 2017, the year she left Vashon High School and started at Paseo, so results from 2017 are not comparable to the years prior and after.

According to 2019 school performance results for Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, the school did see improvements in certain academic areas such as English and science, and is on track to make improvements in math.

It received less positive scores for improvement in the area of college and career-readiness, which the state measures by percentage of graduates defined as college or career-ready; percentage of graduates that earned Advanced Placement or vocational credits; and percentage of graduates employed or furthering their education six months after graduation.

Before working as principal at Paseo, she served as principal from 2015 to 2017 at Vashon High School in St. Louis. In 2016, the school achieved a score of 50.5 points out of 140 possible points on its annual performance report. The data for 2017 for the school was incomplete. 

Powell introduced herself at the school board’s May meeting.

“We (the superintendent and board) are just six people. We will not move this district from ‘F’ status on up if you, the people, don’t lock arms with us to join us in what we’re going to be doing,” said Powell. “I’m excited and I know that we can do it.” 

Winters is optimistic about the district’s future with Powell.

“I do know when you’re surrounded by positive people, you can get where you’re trying to get,” she said.

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Read the story behind this cartoon here.

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The “Yes on 76” campaign to expand Medicaid in Mississippi through a ballot initiative has been officially suspended — a pro forma move since the state Supreme Court last week nullified the state’s ballot initiative process with a ruling striking down medical marijuana Initiative 65.

The campaign, backed by the Mississippi Hospital Association and other groups, had just kicked off its drive last week to gather 106,000 signatures and put expansion on the 2022 midterm ballot. But the Supreme Court on Friday ruled the state’s ballot initiative process is “unworkable and inoperative” unless and until lawmakers and voters fix state law and the constitution. The ruling also halts initiative drives to allow a vote on the retired state flag with a Confederate battle emblem on it, to legalize recreational marijuana, to enact early voting and to adopt term limits for politicians.

READ MORE: Mississippi Supreme Court overturns medical marijuana Initiative 65, kills ballot initiative process

Some lawmakers and many voters are calling on Gov. Tate Reeves to call the Legislature back into session to deal with both issues. He said he’s open to the idea, but is “a long way” from making that decision.

In a statement Wednesday, the Medicaid expansion campaign said: “We fully support the call for a special legislative session to restore the constitutional right of Mississippians to vote directly on the issues of importance, including Medicaid expansion, and we will pursue every avenue possible to restore the rights of voters in this state.”

READ MORE: ‘Human issue, not political’: Medicaid expansion ballot drive begins

The group said it will also continue to urge lawmakers and the governor to expand Medicaid to cover more than 200,000 working poor uninsured Mississippians.

“Our broad coalition of doctors, nurses, businesses and faith leaders and voters from across the political spectrum is not going away,” the statement said. “We will keep up the fight until Mississippians receive the healthcare they need.”

READ MORE: ‘Let voters decide’: Mississippi Medicaid expansion ballot initiative filed

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In this edition of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Tupelo businessman, philanthropist and former Mayor Jack Reed, Jr..

Jack joined Tupelo’s Reed’s in 1980 after several years practicing law in Tupelo. He became President in 1987. Jack was born and raised in Tupelo. He graduated with honors from both Tupelo High School and Vanderbilt University. At the University of Mississippi School of Law he served on the Editorial Board of the Mississippi Law Journal and as President of the Law School Student Body. Following a pathway walked by his father and Chairman, Jack Reed, Sr., and his grandfather and founder R. W. Reed, Sr., Jack had devoted much time and energy to putting back into his communities – both local and state. He has served as Chairman of the Community Development Foundation, the United Way of Greater Lee County, Northeast Mississippi Habitat for Humanity, The Free Clinic, the Kiwanis Club, the Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association, and the Mississippi Economic Council. Jack and his wife Lisa have two children — a daughter Kirk Reed Forrester, who with her husband Tate has two daughters and two sons, Bess, Reed, Mack, and Sam; and a son Jack, with his wife Ashley, has a son named Jack.

His personal Motto is “God wants life to be a party; it’s up to us to make sure that everyone is invited.”

The post Mississippi Stories: Jack Reed, Jr. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Pressure from citizens and top politicians is growing for lawmakers to return to Jackson for a special session to fix the ballot initiative process after the Supreme Court struck it down along with the medical marijuana program passed by voters last year.

But Gov. Tate Reeves, who is the sole elected official with the power to call lawmakers to Jackson before the next regular session begins in January 2022, says he is “a long way” from making that decision.

“(A special session) is something we are certainly willing to consider,” Reeves told Scott Simmons at WAPT in Jackson on Tuesday. “We are a long way from being able to make that decision.”

READ MORE: Poll: 60% oppose Court’s medical marijuana ruling, support special session

There are two main issues at play because of the Supreme Court ruling, and both could be taken up in a special session if Reeves wants. First, the state currently has no ballot initiative process, which allows citizens to vote on constitutional changes without legislative approval. Second, the medical marijuana program enshrined in the state constitution by 74% of voters in November 2020 was effectively killed by the Court.

On the ballot initiative process, Reeves told WAPT: “We have three branches of government, and it is the judicial branch’s job to interpret the law. I don’t know that I would have ruled one way or another, but I respect the court and the roles they play, and so now, it is incumbent on the legislative branch to come back and fix this process.”

On the marijuana program, Reeves said: “The people have spoken. They made their voice heard and voted overwhelmingly to have a (medical marijuana) program and Mississippi should have that.”

This week, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, and House Speaker Philip Gunn both publicly supported the notion of a special session.

Hosemann said lawmakers could pass a marijuana program during a special session, but that they can handle the ballot initiative process during the 2022 regular legislative session.

Gunn, in public comments, has said that lawmakers should reconvene for a special session to deal with the ballot initiative process, but he has not said recently whether he supports lawmakers passing a medical marijuana program.

There have also been questions about how quickly any change to the constitution could be implemented if lawmakers pass a ballot initiative fix. Changing the constitution in the Legislature requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers, followed by approval by voters on a statewide ballot. Both Reeves and Hosemann have suggested that a vote to approve the change couldn’t occur until 2022. But lawmakers could call a special statewide election at any point to ask voters to approve the change.

Lawmakers can, however, pass a medical marijuana program themselves at any time without needing a vote of the people.

READ MORE: Speaker Gunn supports special session to fix ballot initiative process

READ MORE: Lt. Gov. Hosemann supports medical marijuana, initiative rights as voters seethe

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The onerous application working-class students in Mississippi must complete to receive college loans and grants could require an extra step under a new rule proposed by the state office that oversees financial aid. 

Starting Oct. 1, the Mississippi Office of Student Financial Aid may ask students applying for the Higher Education Legislative Plan for Needy Students (HELP) grant to provide additional documents if their state and federal financial aid applications describe a different household size and parental marital status. Those documents could be a rental agreement, a marriage license, a divorce decree or a death certificate.

The HELP grant is intended for students from working-class families — those that make $39,500 or less. To qualify, students have to fill out the Mississippi Aid Application. But before they can do that, students must first complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and be found eligible for a full or partial Pell grant.

Both applications ask students to describe their household size.

In the event a student submits conflicting information, OSFA will need to verify which description is right, said Jennifer Rogers, OSFA’s director, because her office uses household size to determine family income. 

“A full-tuition grant is extremely generous, and it should go to the students who meet all of the eligibility criteria,” Rogers said. “To be good stewards of the state’s resources, we have an obligation to ensure that the students are being completely truthful in their application regarding their family’s resources.” 

Rogers expects only a small number of HELP applicants will be affected by the new rule, which was approved by the Post-Secondary Board at its mid-April meeting and is currently going through the administrative review process. Her office hasn’t pulled exact numbers, but it estimates about 3 percent of HELP applicants — between 100 and 150 students — listed a different household size from what they put on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). 

Still, advocates for college access say the policy could put up another barrier for working-class students seeking financial aid. While they acknowledge the importance of weeding out fraud, advocates question if the benefit of stopping some students who don’t need aid from receiving it outweighs the potential cost: Preventing working-class students from getting the help they need to go to college. 

READ MORE: ‘We’re excluding the highest need students’: Most recipients of financial aid in Mississippi are from wealthier families

“Could there be families out there completing the forms with different information on purpose? Perhaps there are,” said MorraLee Keller, the director of technical assistance at the National College Attainment Network (NCAN). “It’s a good thing (OSFA will) verify it.” 

At the same time, Keller said, “anytime you put an extra step in the process, it creates a hurdle.” 

Working-class students seeking help affording college already face a number of hurdles their wealthier peers do not. Notably, they are also already more likely to have their financial aid applications audited by the federal government in a process it calls “verification.”

Each year, millions of students across the country are asked to hand over additional documents to so the US Department of Education can verify their FAFSA application is truthful, from forms detailing what their family spends on rent, food, and utilities in a month to a letter from a doctor confirming a disability.

Financial aid officers and college access advocates had long suspected that working-class students are selected for verification at disproportionately high rates. In February, the Washington Post obtained data that confirmed their hunch: The paper reported the federal government verifies financial aid applications from “students whose household income is low enough to qualify for Pell grants … at six times the rate of those who are ineligible.” 

The Post also found that Black and Latino students are audited at disproportionately higher rates than white students. 

And yet, research suggests the federal government might have an easier time rooting out fraud if it scrutinized wealthier students as closely as it does working-class ones.

A recent study by NCAN found that it is actually wealthier students who are more likely to receive an improper amount of financial aid due to false information on the FAFSA application. NCAN found that about 93% of FAFSA filers in the lowest-income bracket — those with an expected family contribution (EFC) of zero — did not have their financial award change after verification. 

“By comparison,” the report reads, “FAFSA filers who did not receive an auto-zero EFC more frequently have a change to their award after verification,” at a rate of about 65%.

OSFA’s new rule, while is sounds similar to verification, is a bit different. OSFA’s policy is triggered by conflicting information on the HELP application and the FAFSA, while the federal government won’t share the methodology behind why some applications are verified and not others. 

Nonetheless, advocates say the principle undergirding both processes is the same.

“Those getting the dollars are always going to be the ones with the most scrutiny,” Keller said. “We ask poor people to prove over and over again that they’re poor, and it’s just not fair.”

As a result, tens of thousands of students across the country do not receive the financial aid they likely qualified for, in some cases leading them to drop out of college or never attend. 

That’s what Lakisha, a single mother in Jackson County, worried would happen to her twins who are seniors in high school when she learned their financial aid applications were selected for verification. She waited over two weeks for one community college financial aid office to send her the forms it needed; when they finally arrived, Lakisha said the questions seemed like a waste of time. 

“It was the exact same stuff I turned in in the first place,” she said. “Why does it need the same questions; they should’ve had that stuff in the first place. Why did they ask me the same stuff over and over?” 

While OSFA’s new policy may be well-intentioned, Lakisha said the idea of possibly being asked for additional documents, especially those pertaining to marital status, “feels like a punishment.” 

“I don’t think they should judge you on your mishaps,” she said. “People’s circumstances change all of the time — all of the time. You never know when it’s gonna change, you do not know.”

Before OSFA starts auditing HELP applications, Ann Hendrick, the director of Get2College, said she would encourage the office to “understand the counseling aspect and the trauma that” questions can bring. Hendrick pointed out that the innocuous nature of application questions — how much money does your family make, where did your parents go to college — can belie the potentially distressing situations behind the answers. She has heard stories of brusque financial aid officers asking students selected for verification painful questions like, “why did your mother leave your step-father, and can you get a police report on that?”

Ideally, rather than audit any application, Hendrick said she’d like to see OSFA bring its application in line with the FAFSA, which is being simplified for the 2023-2024 school year. She said that would reduce the burden on working-class families, as well as the amount of time OSFA will spend making sure those documents are truthful. 

“In one year all the rules are getting ready to change for the FAFSA,” Hendrick said. “It would be wise for the state financial aid office to align their processes with the FAFSA, because verification takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of counseling.” 

READ MORE: Here’s how to apply for the FAFSA

Editor’s note: Get2College is a program of the Woodward Hines Education Foundation, a Mississippi Today donor.

The post Applying for financial aid is hard. A new rule could make it harder. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Gov. Tate Reeves, waiting until after the 2021 legislative session ended, announced nine appointments late Tuesday afternoon to the three boards that govern the state’s public education entities.

The governor announced four appointments for the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, two to the Board of Education and three to the Mississippi Community College Board.

The appointments come after at least two of the boards struggled to conduct business as usual the past few months because of vacancies that Reeves didn’t fill on time.

At times in recent months, the nine-member Board of Education has not had enough members to constitute a quorum to conduct business because of the vacancies the governor was responsible for filling and one vacancy each that Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann are responsible for filling. Hosemann and Gunn still have not filled their spots on the Education Board.

The board, due to a shortage of board members, was unable to move forward with approving additional flexibility for the Gulfport School District in April and had to remove from its upcoming agenda more funding for a pre-kindergarten program in Tallahatchie County. And earlier this month, IHL Board, uncertain it would have enough members to legally vote on finance items at its May 20 regular meeting, called an emergency meeting to consider those matters on May 5. 

Reeves appointed Wendi Barrett and Matt Miller to the nine-member Board of Education, which oversees the Mississippi Department of Education and adopts policies and rules for the state’s public schools. Barrett is an English teacher at St. Martin High School in Ocean Springs and has a Ph.D. in higher education and administration from William Carey University. Miller is an attorney at the law firm Copeland, Cook, Taylor and Bush in Hattiesburg. 

The terms of four members of the College Board ended earlier this month, meaning the panel would have had just enough members to conduct business for Thursday’s meeting if Reeves had not made his appointments Tuesday.

Reeves’ four picks to the IHL Board are Ormella Cummings, Teresa Hubbard, Gregg Rader, and Hal Parker, who has been reappointed.

Cummings is the chief strategy officer for North Mississippi Health Services, a non-profit that provides medical and surgical services to rural counties in northeast Mississippi and northwest Alabama. Hubbard is president and CEO of CITE Armored, a Holly Springs-based manufacturer of armored vehicles like SWAT trucks. Rader is the chief executive officer of Columbus Recycling Corporation. Parker, who invests in real estate, was first appointed to the board in 2012 by Gov. Phil Bryant.

Cummings graduated from University of Mississippi, and Hubbard is an alumna of Delta State University. Both Rader and Parker graduated from Mississippi State University. 

To the Mississippi Community College Board, Reeves appointed Luke Montgomery, the president and CEO of a short-term lending company in Fulton, and Will Symmes, a partner at a Gulfport multidisciplinary law firm. Johnny McRight, who owns a Greenville-based company that manufactures soil micronutrients, was reappointed. McRight and Montgomery already were serving on the board that oversees the state’s 15 two-year colleges after being appointed by Bryant.

Montgomery attended Itawamba Community College and is also an MSU alum, and McRight attended Mississippi Delta Community College before transferring to UM. Symmes graduated from University of Southern Mississippi and Mississippi College School of Law. 

“I am confident that each of these appointees have the credentials and unique and diverse experiences to help us continue improving Mississippi’s education system in a way that prioritizes students above all else,” Reeves said in a press release. “Whether at the K-12, community college, or university level, I believe improving our educational achievement levels is critical to our long-term success and will further our efforts to make Mississippi the best place in America to live, work, and raise a family.”

Reeves opted not to name the appointees during the 2021 session, when their confirmations would have been taken up by the Senate. There is a question about whether Reeves can fill the positions at this point without a special session, but it does not appear Reeves’ authority to make the appointments will be challenged, according to various Senate sources. Instead, the Senate will take up the appointments in the 2022 session after they already had been serving on their respective boards.

But in March, legal experts told Mississippi Today that there is a question of whether the appointees could begin serving prior to the next legislative session, which could be either a special session called by the governor or the 2022 regular session.

The attorney general, in a 1977 opinion, seemed to support the argument that for regularly scheduled vacancies the governor must make the appointments in the session before the vacancy occurs or wait until the next session. The opinion stated when a “term is about to expire and will expire by limitation before the next session of the Senate, the governor should nominate a person to fill the vacancy” and “if he fails to do so, he cannot make a valid appointment to fill such a vacancy in the vacation of the Senate.” If the governor tried to do so, it “would be to limit and abridge the right of the Senate to advise and consent to the appointment.”

A 2015 document compiled by the Legislature’s Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Committee reaches essentially the same conclusion.

The PEER report said state law “requires” that the governor make the appointment in the session before any regularly scheduled vacancy that occurred within nine months of the legislative session. But the report goes on the say that in many instances the governor has appointed someone after the session ended and that appointee began serving prior to being considered by the Senate in the next regular session.

“This practice is in direct contravention of” state law, the PEER report concluded.

Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, who has overseen multiple confirmation hearings during his legislative career, said he is not sure whether a special session should be called to fill the positions, but said, “The real problem is this it is not worded clearly. We need to write a law that is easy to understand.”

Research conducted by Mississippi Today found that former governors Phil Bryant and Haley Barbour submitted to the Senate their College Board appointees to be confirmed in the session before the appointees’ tenures began. Former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove made some College Board appointments after the session ended and they began serving before they were confirmed by the Senate.

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The Mississippi Supreme Court on Friday issued a much-anticipated ruling that strikes down the Medical marijuana program enshrined in the state constitution by voters in November.

The ruling also voids — for now — the state’s ballot initiative process that allows voters to take matters in hand and pass constitutional amendments. The court ruled that the state’s ballot initiative process is “unworkable and inoperative” until lawmakers and voters fix state law and the constitution.

Both Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and House Speaker Philip Gunn support Gov. Tate Reeves calling a special session to allow legislators to reinstate the state’s initiative process after the 6-3 decision.

Last week’s ruling has sparked widespread conversation, and we want to know what our readers think. How do you feel about the Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the ballot initiative process? How do you feel about the Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Initiative 65? Share your thoughts by filling out the survey below.

The post Share your thoughts on Mississippi’s ballot initiative process appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann on Tuesday said he supports having a state medical marijuana program and voters having a right to change the state constitution, both of which the Mississippi Supreme Court shot down last week.

Hosemann said that “If the governor chooses to call the Legislature back into special session, the Senate will be ready.” But he said there is more urgency in dealing with medical marijuana than reinstating voters’ right to ballot initiatives, and he questioned whether there is a need for a special session for the latter.

READ MORE: Speaker Gunn supports special session to fix ballot initiative process

Conversely, Hosemann’s counterpart in the House, fellow Republican Philip Gunn, has called on the governor to call a special session to deal with voters’ ballot initiative rights, but has been silent on the medical marijuana program being reinstated.

Hosemann said that before the governor calls any special session, lawmakers need to be on the same page with an “organized, clear, common-sense approach” so they don’t malinger in Jackson and cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars a day in special session expenses.

Meanwhile, many voters are angered by the high court striking down the medical marijuana Initiative 65 they overwhelmingly approved in November. One group, called “We are the 74,” organized just days ago, now had close to 3,000 members on its Facebook page Tuesday, and is planning a rally May 25 at the state Supreme Court building in downtown Jackson. The 74 refers to the 74% of the vote that Initiative 65 received, compared to an alternative amendment on the November ballot.

“We are here to serve as a rally point and to fight for the voices of Mississippians to be heard,” a post on the site said. “Recent events have shown us that now more than ever we need to walk arm in arm and show our elected officials that the POWER still lies with the PEOPLE!”

READ MORE: Poll: 60% oppose Court’s medical marijuana ruling, support special session

Many lawmakers and other public officials, including House Speaker Philip Gunn, are calling on Gov. Tate Reeves to bring lawmakers back to Jackson in special session to deal with reinstating voters’ ballot initiative rights, reinstating a medical marijuana program, or both. Reeves has not said definitively when, or if, he would call lawmakers back.

Hosemann said that reinstating the state’s ballot initiative process — which allows voters to take matters in hand when elected officials won’t do something — would require not only action by the Legislature, but voters approving it. He said that although lawmakers could set a special election, this could not realistically be done before the scheduled November 2022 elections, so lawmakers could tackle the issue in their regular session starting in January. He said there is more urgency for medical marijuana, because there are patients suffering who could be treated with the drug.

Hosemann noted that the Senate last session, twice, voted for an “alternative” medical marijuana program that could have been a backstop to the one voters adopted when the high court shot it down. At the time, many Initiative 65 supporters viewed the move as lawmakers trying to usurp the program voters approved.

READ MORE: Mississippi’s medical marijuana mess

Hosemann commented on the issue on Tuesday before a meeting in Flowood with local elected officials from Hinds, Madison and Rankin counties.

State Rep. Jill Ford, R-Madison, attended the meeting. She was vocally opposed to the Initiative 65 medical marijuana program, and said she was pleased with the Supreme Court striking it down. She said she is not opposed to medical marijuana in general, but disagreed with specifics of Initiative 65 and with it being in the constitution instead of state law. She said that, “I’m going to write a (medical marijuana) bill in January, if we don’t pursue it before then.”

Ford noted that special sessions are costly, and she is unsure whether one is required for either medical marijuana or reinstating voters’ initiative rights. She said she is uncertain whether she supports voters having a right to ballot initiative.

“That’s a hard question to answer,” Ford said. “I can’t give you a yes or no. I see what California (where ballot initiatives are common) has become. I don’t want that for Mississippi.”

The post Hosemann supports medical marijuana, initiative rights as voters seethe appeared first on Mississippi Today.