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The post Marshall Ramsey: Medicaid Expansion appeared first on Mississippi Today.

It was a routine honed from 18 years of working at Gulfport High School. Each Monday, around 7:45 a.m., lead guidance counselor Cecilia Zahedi would arrive at her office to find a student waiting outside, hoping to catch her before the tardy bell rang. After the first period, she would usually check attendance, call the parents of no-shows, and field emails from teachers concerned about their students. 

At the first lull, Zahedi would log onto the website for the Office of Federal Student Aid and download a roster of seniors at Gulfport who had completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the cumbersome paperwork prospective college students must fill out in order to receive loans and scholarships. She’d make a note of the missing names. 

Over the next week, if Zahedi saw one of those students in the cafeteria or the hallway, she’d pull them aside. “You have to fill out the FAFSA,” she’d tell them. “C’mon, come (to my office) and let’s make an appointment.”

But that was before the pandemic. Last semester, many of the classrooms at Gulfport were empty. Students weren’t hanging around for Zahedi in the morning. As a result, Zahedi said, the number of seniors at Gulfport who have submitted their FAFSA ahead of the June 30 deadline has fallen.  

Across Mississippi, fewer high school seniors have completed applications for federal financial aid compared to past academic years, according to statistics compiled by the National College Attainment Network. As of Jan. 29, the most recent data available, 2,203 fewer students had filled out the FAFSA compared to last academic year — a drop of 18.3%, nearly double the current national completion rate of 9.7%.

If high school seniors don’t complete this step, they cannot receive federal financial aid to help pay for college, which in Mississippi costs an average of $8,120 a year at the state’s public universities.

Completed applications are down in urban, suburban and rural school districts in Mississippi, but the decline is worse in schools with higher populations of working-class students and students of color. 

This is worrisome, advocates for college access say, because those students stand to benefit the most from federal and state financial aid, like the Pell Grant and the Higher Education Legislative Plan grant, that can only be obtained by submitting a FAFSA. They are also the students for whom going to college can be harder if they don’t enroll after high school.

For students from rural towns or working-class families, “the FAFSA is gonna be your roadmap, your tool for education,” said Arlisha Walton, the financial aid director at Rust College. “It opens the door, it can get you to your next step.” 

A tangle of factors are influencing this decline in Mississippi, according to guidance counselors and financial aid officers. COVID-19-related job losses have pushed some students into working full-time to help their families, while others aren’t sure they want to pay tens of thousands of dollars for virtual college classes. Internet access also remains a barrier for families that don’t have computers at home.

The pandemic has also made it harder for guidance counselors, who normally steward families through the tedious application process, to reach students. Counselors have turned to social media, emails, text messages and FaceTime, but these efforts don’t supplant seeing a student in person. 

“In a typical year, when students are ‘brick and mortar,’ as we call it, I could go into English 12 classes, physics, calculus,” Zahedi said. But last semester, “so many of them were not in the building. They were an email away or a phone call away, but there’s something different about not seeing the kid walking down the hall.”

This is where Get2College came in. Helping students apply for financial aid is a cornerstone effort of the Mississippi nonprofit, which works to increase college access in the state.

Pre-pandemic, Get2College would host FAFSA workshops at high schools and hold face-to-face, one-on-one appointments with families. With COVID-19 rendering that no longer possible, the nonprofit started holding virtual workshops in October after FAFSA applications opened, said Kierstan Dufour, the organization’s assistant director and project manager. 

Yet by December, completed applications were still low. Get2College redoubled their efforts. Since then, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Dufour and other Get2College staff have manned a Zoom room, greeting families that log on before directing them to a break-out session, where they are paired with a student volunteer who walks them through the form. 

One of those volunteers is Quindalin Harper, a 20-year-old psychology student at Pearl River Community College. In the four months Harper has worked with Get2College, he has helped dozens of families complete their FAFSA. A first generation college student from Bassfield, Mississippi, Harper said he likes helping seniors because he knows first-hand how intimidating applying for financial aid can be. 

About three years ago, when it came time for Harper to fill out the FAFSA, “I was scared,” he said. “I did not know exactly what to put down, like what really qualifies you to be a dependent or an independent student, having to deal with the whole tax information thing. You have to know every nook and cranny, so that was really terrifying to me. It was like, ‘oh no, is the IRS gonna come and take me away if I mess up,’” he joked.

Colleges are also seeing a drop in already-enrolled students renewing the FAFSA. At Itawamba Community College, 6,839 students received financial aid for the 2020-2021 school. As of February 9, only 948 of those students have filed to renew their financial aid for the coming school year. This is lower than the number of renewals ICC expects to see by this time in the academic year, said Terry Bland, the director of financial aid. 

Bland is hopeful the numbers will tick up toward the end of the semester, but his office is encouraging students to “come to us now while we have a little bit of an easy time in the spring semester.”

“The longer they wait, the more they procrastinate, it just means they’re gonna be lined up and down our hallway come July and August,” he said, “and that’s what we’re trying to avoid—long lines and long wait times for us to help them.” 

For some students, a major deadline is around the corner: Seniors hoping to qualify for the HELP grant need to submit their forms by March 31. 

HELP pays for all four years of college; Zahedi, whose school has some of the highest number of grant recipients, knows that can be life-changing for students. She has gone to great lengths to ensure that students who might qualify for HELP submit their forms on time. She has knocked on doors, phoned bosses to ask them to give parents time off work to help their kids apply, and even driven families to government offices to help them get the right documents. 

“That’s how important the money is for those kids,” she said. 

Zahedi hasn’t knocked on any doors just yet. For now, counselors across the state are watching the application numbers and, when they can, reminding students that despite the trauma and uncertainty of pandemic times, college is still possible.

“We are in a different place in education than we’ve ever been,” said Lesian Davis, the director of counseling services for the Jackson Public School District. “Not only students but their parents, they are afraid. We want them to understand that they can keep moving.” 

“Any parents or guardians that have concerns, assistance, if you are not sure what to do, please reach out to us,” she added. “We are here to ensure the success of [your] children, our children and anything that we can do to help you, we will definitely extend ourselves to do it.” 

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

The post Fewer Mississippi students are applying for financial aid. Here’s why officials are worried. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Dr. Andrea Phillips and other Black physicians in the state gathered at her small solo clinic in Jackson for a press conference on Jan. 5, a day after Mississippi’s general elderly population became eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines.

The physicians wanted to help show other Black Mississippians that the vaccine was safe to take while acknowledging America’s history of racist, abusive medical practices like the Tuskegee Experiment that eroded trust in government health care.

When Phillips organized the event, her focus was the barrier of mistrust among Black Mississippians. But now, more than a month into the vaccine’s rollout for the general population, Phillips realizes trust was not the sole obstacle.

“The perspective we, me and some other doctors, were coming from initially is that we have to get our people ready and willing to take this vaccine,” Phillips told Mississippi Today. “We never dreamed there would be a problem of access.”

As of Feb. 10, 19% of total shots went to Black Mississippians, a group that comprises 38% of the state. During the early stages of the pandemic, the state’s Black population felt the brunt of both cases and deaths, although now both figures are more in line with the state’s overall demographics. Nationally, though, people of color still see more cases, deaths and hospitalizations than white Americans.

For weeks now at press conferences and social media Q&As, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs has addressed the racial disparity in vaccine distribution by emphasizing “trust and access” as the two key roadblocks. In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from December, nearly two-thirds of Black respondents were hesitant about taking the vaccine.

So far, the state health department’s primary avenue for promoting the vaccine among Black residents has been to gain trust through community leader endorsements. On Feb. 1, MSDH held a similar event to Phillips’, broadcasting Black pastors from around the state taking their first doses. MSDH has also worked with county officials, such as Holmes County Supervisor Leroy Johnson, to localize the effort.

Johnson, likening himself to the canary in the coal mine, said he took convincing to get the shot because of a history of premature deaths in his family but also a larger distrust in the government.

“It’s how do you trust the feds, but in Mississippi it’s also how do you trust the state government?” Johnson said. “There’s been no good will between the Black community and the state of Mississippi.”

Eventually, Johnson said, he was convinced by his brother, who’s a doctor, but also by the number of his constituents who have died in the past year. Holmes County, which has the third-highest percentage of Black residents and the eighth-highest poverty rate in the country, also has the eighth-most COVID-19 related deaths per capita in the state.

After getting both shots, Johnson said he’s discussed the experience with community members. But gaining the trust to give someone the vaccine, he said, only goes so far without the supply to back it.

“They ask us, these majority Black boards of supervisors, to get the vaccine in order to show our community that they need to not be afraid and take the vaccine,” Johnson explained. “But then you turn around and don’t provide enough vaccine for the folks who want it. Then your constituency comes at you and says, ‘We’re trying to get it. We don’t believe in it but we trust you.’ And then they can’t get the vaccine. I know that hurts my credibility.”

Dr. Laura Miller, a white physician based in Prentiss who works in predominantly Black and underserved rural areas in Jefferson Davis County, said she saw the same issue.

“We can talk about educating people about the vaccine, but at the end of the day access is first,” Miller said. “If I convince someone to get a vaccine and I don’t have access or a way to give it to them, that lessens their agreement to get it.”

The main root of the access issue for the state overall, as well as much of the country, is a limited supply. MSDH estimated that more than a third of the state, or over a million people, currently qualifies to receive doses. With a weekly supply that’s just recently increased to about 45,000, appointments fill up rapidly.

Since the general population became eligible, a vast majority of the state’s shots have been given to MSDH’s drive-thru sites, which are scattered around the state and located near more densely populated areas. Gov. Tate Reeves asserted that the drive-thru sites have been far more efficient and reliable for getting shots in arms than hospitals and other community partners. In late January, MSDH estimated that more than 80% of the state’s supply was going to the drive-thru sites, which has meant limited availability outside of that system.

As of the first week in February, there are as many as 21 drive-thru sites on a given day:

The reliance on drive-thru sites, though, may be part of the cause of the racial disparity. Dobbs tweeted on Feb. 4 that only 18% of shots at the drive-thru sites went to Black Mississippians, compared to a share of 71% at community health centers and 72% at hemodialysis centers.

Moreover, the locations the state selected for drive-thru sites may also have caused disproportionate distribution, Phillips, the Jackson physician, explained. She and others pointed to the late addition of a first site in Hinds County, which opened Jan. 22 at Smith-Wills Stadium.

“Hinds County until about a month ago had the highest number of cases,” she said. “Hinds County still has the largest number of deaths. Hinds County houses the largest city in Jackson. But more pointedly, Hinds County has the largest black populous.”

Even with the site, she said, “a lot changes when you cross Lakeland Drive,” referring to the whiter, more affluent demographics around Smith-Wills Stadium compared to the county as a whole; Census tract data shows the neighborhood is 89% white with a median household income of $89,704, compared to the rest of Hinds County which is 72% Black and has a median household income of $44,625.

Phillips and Miller both said that another layer to the trust and access barriers is that patients want to receive shots from their own personal care provider. Phillips said nearly all of her patients, almost all Black, go to her to receive flu shots.

“The ideal thing would be for us to have access to it because we know our patients,” Miller said. “So it’s really easy for me to see a geriatric patient, or whether they’re a minority or socioeconomically disadvantaged, to talk to them about it to discuss their concerns and to, if they agree, then get them the vaccine, as opposed to going, ‘Let’s look at scheduling you in the next two or three weeks.’ It’s a lot easier if I can go ahead and give it to them.”

But state leadership said that an increase in the federal allocation will mean a bigger share of doses going to community partners. In January, only about 7,000 doses out of the state’s weekly allotment went to those partners; last week, Gov. Tate Reeves said that number increased to 21,000. In addition, a new federal partnership targeting the racial disparity will send about 10% of Mississippi’s vaccine to Walmart pharmacies around the state, starting this week.

Whether it’s through expansion of the MSDH sites or increased allocation to community partners like herself, Phillips said the state needs to be more intentional about providing the vaccine to Black residents.

“We’re playing catch up now,” she said. “This is not about keeping the number equal. Equal is not equitable. We are failing the minority communities in this state.”

The post ‘We’re failing minority communities’: Why Black Mississippians are receiving fewer COVID-19 vaccines than white Mississippians appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A Mason-Dixon Polling survey released Thursday shows that Gov. Tate Reeves’ approval has risen among Mississippi voters, while President Biden’s has flagged.

And a large majority opposes Trump’s conviction in the U.S. Senate in the ongoing trial on an inciting insurrection charge.

The survey found that 56% polled approve of the job Reeves is doing (up from 50% a year ago) and 36% disapprove. The poll is also in sharp contrast to one by Millsaps College/Chism Strategies last month that showed 34% approving Reeves’ performance and nearly 50% disapproving.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves’ approval rating tanked as COVID-19 pandemic worsened, poll shows.

The poll by Florida-based Mason-Dixon was conducted from Feb. 2-5, among 625 registered voters and asked only three questions: on Reeves, Biden and Trump’s trial. The poll included 46% Republicans, 32% Democrats and 22% independents. Its margin of error is +/- 4 points.

The poll found that approval for Biden, who lost the state in November with 41% of the vote, is at 35%, with 56% disapproving.

It also showed that 62% of voters oppose Trump’s conviction in the Senate trial, with 35% supporting it.

According to the poll, Biden has gained no ground with Mississippi Republicans. It showed that 87% of Democrats approve of the job he’s doing so far, but only 3% of Republicans.

The post Poll: Mississippi voters approve of Reeves, disapprove of Biden, don’t want Trump convicted appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In 1997, I did a cartoon of a monk and a teacher recruiter sitting next to each other at a job fair. The monk says to the recruiter, “That vow of poverty thing is killing us, too.” Since then, teachers have gotten a few raises here and there. But things like inflation, health insurance costs, etc. have eaten into those raises. Those who teach don’t do it to get rich. Most teach because it is a passion. Still, when you see a young teacher working a side job and then going home to grade papers, you have to wonder, “can we do better?”

The post Marshall Ramsey: Teacher Pay appeared first on Mississippi Today.

State Sen. David Jordan, the 86-year-old Democrat from Greenwood and veteran of the Civil Rights struggles, said legislation approved Wednesday by the Mississippi Senate on a straight party line vote could potentially remove “people who look like me” from the voter rolls.

Jordan, the son of sharecroppers who became a nationally known political activist in the 1960s, spoke emotionally from the Senate floor on Wednesday against the bill that Republican authors said was aimed at preventing voter fraud.

“Voter fraud is no major problem in Mississippi,” Jordan said. “I think people who look like me have paid a great price in Mississippi and across this nation to be full-fledged citizens. To bring a bill that could disenfranchise and create problems for people of color to vote and is aimed directly at people like me, people of color, is wrong. We don’t have to do this.”

Senators passed the bill on Wednesday by a vote of 36-16 straight down party lines, with Republicans voting yes and Democrats voting no. The bill now moves to the House for consideration.

The bill’s author Senate Elections Chairman Jeff Tate, R-Meridian, and Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, said the intent of the legislation is to prevent voter fraud by ensuring people who are not eligible voters are removed from the voter registration lists. They pointed out some counties across the state have more people registered to vote than the total population of the county. The voter rolls could include, for instance, people who died and people who moved away from the county and should no longer be on the voter rolls.

“This does not purge you from the voter rolls,” said Tate, a freshman senator and former county elections commissioner. “It allows a trigger for the county to contact those who go without voting.”

Under the bill, Tate estimated that about 250,000 Mississippians would receive a confirmation notice that would result in them being purged from the voter rolls if they did not vote within the next four years or respond to the notice. Others estimated that as many as 600,000 could receive the confirmation notice from county circuit clerks if the bill passed on Wednesday becomes law.

Jordan said the bill was trying to fix a problem that did not exist. During the emotional floor debate of more than 90 minutes on Wednesday, Tate said he was 100% sure voter fraud existed in the state, though he could give no concrete example. Election officials, including Hosemann when he was previously secretary of state, have never provided evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.

Jordan said the instances of voter fraud, if any, were small and not widespread enough to merit the risk of accidentally removing eligible voters from the voter rolls.

The debate comes in the midst of the recent federal election controversy and efforts on the national level by former President Donald Trump and many Republican officials, including several in Mississippi, to throw out the ballots of tens of thousands of primarily African American voters.

Mississippi, with its sordid, racist history of election intimidation and voter suppression, already has some of the strictest voting laws in the nation. The state is one of just 18 that requires voters to provide photo IDs at their polling places on the day they vote, and qualifying for mail-in voting requires one of three narrow excuses.

Mississippi also has the nation’s strictest early voting laws. In 2020, Mississippi was the only state in the nation that didn’t give all citizens the opportunity to vote early in-person or by mail. Mississippi is one of just five states that does not allow no-excuse voting by mail, but in those other four states, all voters were given the option to vote early during the pandemic.

READ MORE: “Practices aimed to suppress the vote”: Mississippi is the only state without early voting for all during pandemic.

Tate said there are safeguards in the bill to ensure people are not wrongly removed from voter rolls. People who do not vote over a two-year period would receive the confirmation notice from the county circuit clerk. Voters would then have four years to return the notice. Tate said it would take six to eight years for a person to be purged from the voter rolls.

“The right to vote contains the right to not vote,” said Sen. David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson who worked for years at Mississippi secretary of state’s office.

Under the bill, Blount said someone could receive a notice right after an election, and then six to eight years later opt to vote, knowing they had registered and not realizing for various reasons they had been mailed the confirmation notice, resulting in their ultimate removal from the rolls.

Blount unsuccessfully offered a replacement proposal that could result in people ultimately being removed from the rolls, but only after their names were published to give those who should not be removed time to come forward and verify that they are a registered voter.

Ohio publicly published the names of more than 200,000 people it was removing from the rolls under similar circumstances, and it was found that 40,000 of the people had recently voted and were mistakenly placed on the list, Blount said.

If the Senate bill becomes law and similar mistakes occur in Mississippi, Blount said people who had registered and had the right to vote could be denied that vote.

The post Senate passes ‘voter fraud’ bill that some say could disenfranchise Black Mississippians appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In the inaugural episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor at Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Nic Lott. Lott is a public servant who was the first African-American student body president elected at the University of Mississippi. Lott defeated five other candidates in the history-making event for the state’s oldest university.

He has previously worked under Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and U.S. Congressman J.C. Watts and has interned in The White House during President George W. Bush’s first year in office. During the 2003 Mississippi gubernatorial campaign, Lott was director of youth outreach for GOP nominee Haley Barbour. Following Barbour’s victory, Lott joined Barbour’s administration as senior advisor for communications and public safety issues for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. He also served as an administrator for the Office of Justice Programs under the Department of Public Safety.

Lott is currently a consultant and vows to find ways to continue to improve Mississippi.

Season One: Episode One.

The post Mississippi Stories: Nic Lott appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Three years ago, Kaitlyn Barton taught high school English in the Mississippi Delta, a rural, low income area with a high percentage of non-certified teachers. The Flowood native said she felt undervalued, a result of low pay coupled with limited opportunities to grow. In 2019, she moved to Texas seeking more.

“We expect teachers to wear every hat, but we don’t pay them well or respect them as professionals,” Barton told Mississippi Today. “The level of respect and pay go hand-in-hand. In our capitalist society, we put our money where our value is. And based on how we pay teachers, it’s very obvious that we do not value teachers.” 

Barton, who was forced to work a second job as a waitress while teaching in Clarksdale, no longer struggles to make ends meet. She brings in more than $60,000 a year — about $23,000 more than her Mississippi teaching salary — in her new position as the dean of instruction at YES Prep Public Schools in Houston.

Two years ago, Mississippi Today interviewed Barton and other teachers for an in-depth series that highlighted the state’s critical teacher shortage. As we continue to cover the shortage — perpetuated by little action from state leaders — we followed up with those same teachers this month to ask what they are up to and whether they were still in the profession.

Vernita Burnett, a former English teacher in Clarksdale, brought in about $44,000 a year when she was teaching. Burnett also had side hustles writing papers and doing hair. Jason Jossell, band director and Mississippi history teacher in Quitman County School District, earns slightly more than teachers with his same level of experience because he’s on a coaching pay scale. 

Year after year, Mississippi teachers like Barton leave the state for better pay and opportunities to grow in their profession — two of the many reasons a shortage exists. Mississippi has faced an ongoing battle with the teacher shortage crisis since the inception of the Critical Shortage Act of 1998. The coronavirus pandemic has only heightened the issue. 

The Mississippi Legislature is considering a $1,000 teacher pay raise this year to help bring Mississippi teachers up from the lowest paid in the nation. That bill passed out of the Senate earlier along with a similar bill in the House, but the legislation still needs to make it through the legislative process before it is signed into law by the governor.

Teachers received a $1,500 pay raise in 2019, but educators and advocates expressed disappointment in the fractional salary increase. Legislators proposed another pay raise for teachers in 2020, but that bill died when COVID-19 derailed the 2020 legislative session. 

READ MORE: Pay for new, mid-career teachers in Mississippi ‘extremely low’ compared to other Southern states

When a Mississippi Today reporter asked if there was an increase in the teacher shortage across the state, Carey Wright, superintendent of Mississippi schools, said it “has not been reported” to her in a September 2020 interview. She also said she did not know if the teacher shortage was greater this year than in previous years.

“What I can say is that I think people expected a lot more teachers to retire last year at the end of the year and that did not happen,” Wright said. “I do know that a lot of districts gave teachers a choice of being an in-person teacher versus a virtual teacher. And I think that may have alleviated some fears of teachers about being in the building.”

The Mississippi Department of Education said this month that the department surveys for teacher vacancy information, but individual school districts aren’t required to send it in. This means MDE does not track the number of vacancies for individual districts or for the entire state.

Education experts for years have reiterated that having a firmer grasp on these metrics is necessary to eradicate any teacher shortage. Still, department officials and lawmakers have not made any substantive effort to better define the problem.

Jossell, the band director and Mississippi history teacher in the Delta who Mississippi Today interviewed in 2019, said last month that not much has changed for him during the past few years. This includes how important he thinks teacher pay is in terms of the teacher shortage. He lives near the Arkansas and Tennessee border and said that he could easily cross state lines and make $15,000 more a year. 

So why doesn’t he?

“I didn’t do it (get into education) for the pay. I did it because I’ve always been passionate about this,” Jossell said. He said he’s building a legacy by working in the same position at the same school that his father did. 

But that doesn’t take away the need to pay Mississippi educators competitive wages, he said. 

“Until we really talk about teacher pay and the lack of (good pay), there’s going to be a teacher shortage in Mississippi,” Jossell said. “We don’t pay teachers enough at all. The simple fact that we’re just now talking about teacher pay legislation, it really shows how far back we are compared to other states.”

And aside from pay, there is also something less tangible that Jossell says educators have historically not gotten from state leadership. 

“Teachers deserve more respect,” he said, adding that even though they’ve been essential workers during the pandemic, they haven’t been treated that way. 

“I’m not comparing our work load to a nurse at all, but sometimes I feel like we’re not respected like a nurse. Remember, we’re the ones that are cultivating the next nurses and doctors,” Jossell said. 

Barton shared the same sentiments as Jossell, stating that lawmakers should not “run on a platform of supporting our teachers” if they aren’t willing to “put their money where their mouth is.” Currently, there are two teachers from Mississippi in her school building. The appeal of being a teacher in Texas is that teachers are paid their worth, she added.

“I don’t have a second job in Houston… I’m also admitting that I have a leadership position. I believe even the starting salary for first-year teachers in our districts is at least $50,000,” Barton said. “In Mississippi, I would have to work for 10 years before I think I would have even broken forty (thousand).”

The 2020-21 salary schedule for public school teachers in Mississippi shows it will take a bachelor’s level teacher a minimum of 27 years to reach a $50,000 salary. For teachers with a master’s degree, that time frame is 20 years and 14 years for teachers with doctoral degrees.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is the pay disparity between district office officials, administrators, and teachers, Barton said.

“You shouldn’t have to leave the classroom to make enough money. We should want good teachers to stay in the classroom,” Barton said. “The reality is if you want to make more money in education, you have to leave the classroom.”

Burnett, the former English teacher who is still in her hometown of Clarksdale, is now an academic coach. Though she earns $6,000 more than she did being a classroom teacher, the extra money didn’t make a “big difference” in her decision to stay, she said. 

Burnett is finishing up her doctoral program in education leadership, but even then, she won’t make as much as someone with her years of experience and degree level in a comparable state. In neighboring Alabama, the minimum salary for a teacher with a doctoral degree and nine years or less experience makes a little more than $62,000. For Burnett to earn $62,000 in Mississippi, she would need to teach for more than 25 years, according to the state’s salary scale.

It’s not pay that keeps Burnett in the field of education. It’s having the skills and knowledge to be “more effective” by helping teachers to help students in her hometown, she added.

“In the areas where we live, there’s not a big difference in money,” Burnett said. “(Being an academic coach) was more so of a better opportunity and having the chance to take the things I’ve learned or the things I went to school for to help other people.”

The post ‘It’s very obvious that we do not value teachers’: Why educators say there’s a critical teacher shortage appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A lawsuit pending in the high court. More litigation possible. The agency tasked with running it doesn’t want to. An “alternative” program proposed late in the game.

Mississippi’s fledgling medical marijuana program — overwhelmingly enshrined in the state constitution by voters in November — is an uncertain mess at the moment, even as the clock ticks for it to start.

After years of inaction by the Legislature despite growing grassroots, bipartisan support, nearly 74% of voters in November approved Initiative 65. It’s a constitutional amendment mandating and specifying a state medical marijuana program.

The measure, which opponents still claim was drafted to favor the marijuana industry and is just short of legalized recreational use, puts the Mississippi State Department of Health in charge of the program, with no oversight by elected officials. It also prevents standard taxation of the marijuana, and any fees collected by the health department can only be used to run and expand the marijuana program, not go into state taxpayer coffers. The measure allows little regulation by local governments, no limits on the number of dispensaries and otherwise leaves many specifics… unspecified.

Lawmakers, in the eleventh hour before last year’s vote, unsuccessfully tried to have voters adopt an “alternative” measure that would have allowed more state government oversight and taxation. Voters rejected this.

READ MORE: Mississippi voters overwhelmingly approve medical marijuana program.

But the adopted constitutional amendment now faces litigation, set to be heard in April by the Mississippi Supreme Court. Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler brought the challenge, arguing the state’s initiative process is flawed and the measure was improperly before voters.

The Health Department — struggling for years with underfunding, understaffing and now a pandemic — and Mississippi and American medical associations have joined in, urging the court to overturn the initiative. The state Board of Health had opposed the medical marijuana initiative, and while the board and department claim to be earnestly working to stand up a program as required by the constitution, at least for now, they would appear to be very reluctant partners.

The voter-approved initiative requires the health department to begin issuing dispensary licenses and patient ID cards by Aug. 15. But some state leaders have said the deadlines will be hard to meet and it could be much later before Mississippi patients could receive medical marijuana.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are trying another Hail Mary.

Senate Bill 2765 would create an alternative or “parallel” medical marijuana program to the one voters put in the constitution. Its author, Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, said it’s a bill he started working on in 2018 in hopes the Legislature would have adopted a program — before voters took matters directly in hand.

Blackwell said the bill is needed largely because the state Supreme Court could overturn Initiative 65. Then the state would still have a medical marijuana program, as voters clearly want.

But if the court upholds the constitutional amendment, Blackwell said, “They would co-exist.” The state would have two medical marijuana programs.

Supporters of Blackwell’s proposal hope that should that happen, the medical marijuana industry would view the state law program as more stable and less likely to face further legal challenges — favored by legislators and the bureaucracy and local governments.

The new proposal, which faces a Thursday deadline for a first floor vote in the Senate, would tax medical marijuana. It would be subject to an excise of 4% at cultivation and a retail sales tax of 10% when patients purchase it.

Under Initiative 65, the health department could only charge an assessment up to the state’s 7% sales tax rate on final sale of marijuana, fees up to $50 for identification cards, and “reasonable” fees for dispensaries.

Under the new proposal, money collected by the state, which Blackwell said is estimated at $32 million for the first year then “hundreds of millions” a year subsequently, would go to education. The first 25% would go to the state’s early learning collaboratives program. The next 25% would to to the Mississippi Department of Education’s dual enrollment program, and the remainder to college and university scholarships of up to $6,000 each.

The measure would have the Department of Agriculture handling most regulations, Blackwell said, and would be closely monitored “from seed to sale.” It would allow local governments more regulatory and zoning control over dispensaries.

The measure also would have hefty licensing fees: $100,000 for growers and $20,000 for dispensaries. Dispensaries would have to show proof of assets or provide a surety bond of $250,000, and growers would have to do likewise for amounts set by the Department of Agriculture.

Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville, said he’s concerned the new proposal includes too many “anti-competitive” measures that would prohibit Mississippi small business owners from participating. Blackwell said the law requires 60% Mississippi ownership of companies, but McDaniel said large marijuana corporations could easily find ways around that proviso.

McDaniel said he also questions the 10% sales tax on medical marijuana, when the state doesn’t tax prescription drugs.

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, questioned how any businesses or patients — should both programs be approved — would opt for the higher-taxed, more regulated state law program.

Blackwell, in pitching his bill in committee, told colleagues he has problems with Initiative 65, and believes it unconstitutional — protecting a particular product or industry in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

“That horse has left the barn, Senator Blackwell,” Blount said. “… I wish we had done this last year.”

Blackwell responded, “2018 would have been a good year to have done it.”

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