The Lowndes County School District is one step closer to having an appointed, rather than an elected superintendent, voting 4-1 Friday morning to request permission from the state Legislature to put the issue up for a local referendum.
County residents currently elect the LCSD superintendent to a four-year term, but if the state Legislature and Justice Department approve Friday’s request, voters will make the final decision in whether they want to continue electing superintendents or whether they want to allow the five-member elected school board to appoint a superintendent.
Board member Jacqueline Gray cast the only dissenting vote, saying she believes since the board members are elected, they should be headed by an elected superintendent.
The issue has drawn controversy across the country, with the majority of the nation’s 14,500 school districts choosing appointed superintendents. There are only 147 elected posts in the United States, and 64 of those positions are in Mississippi.
Rep. Gary Chism, R-Columbus, has been pushing for a change in the district’s leadership since his election to the state House of Representatives in 1999. Chism believes appointing superintendents removes politics from the position, allowing board members to choose the best candidate for the job and giving them recourse for immediate disciplinary action if they are unhappy with the superintendent’s performance.
Chism, a former Lowndes County School District board member, has introduced 12 bills trying to mandate appointed superintendents, and he intends to introduce a 13th bill in January. The concept is also being heavily backed by the Mississippi Board of Education, which plans to discuss the issue at its annual leadership conference in November.
Board members Jane Kilgore and Bobby Barksdale spoke in support of the measure, with Kilgore saying it would improve accountability and Barksdale saying it would allow the board to seek candidates from outside the district instead of limiting them to county residents.
The decision will not affect the tenure of the school board’s next superintendent, who will be elected to a four-year term during the Nov. 8 general election. Democrat Cliff Reynolds, Republican Lynn Wright and Independent Rusty Greene are currently vying for the position being vacated by current Superintendent Mike Halford, who is retiring this year after serving two terms.
The board also voted unanimously during Friday’s meeting to set the incoming superintendent’s salary at a base level of $100,000, which may be increased depending upon experience and years of service.
The salary will be capped at $125,000, which is what Halford currently earns. He began eight years ago at a salary of $84,000 per year.
In other news, five school principals were called before the board to account for their schools’ low test scores under the state’s accountability system.
The Mississippi Department of Education released the results last month, and though the district as a whole raised its ranking from successful to high-performing, they still fell short of their goal to be named a star district, which is the highest achievement a district can obtain.
Only three districts in the state were ranked star districts — Clinton, Enterprise and Pass Christian — and only 27 of the 152 districts ranked as high-performing.
This is the third year the state has used the rankings system, which ranks schools and districts against others in the nation by achievement rates on assessment tests, student growth and graduation rates.
Though the district’s quality distribution index score improved from 162 to 169, and its graduation rate increased from 75.4 percent to 78.9 percent, five schools displayed trouble areas which the board asked the principals to address.
New Hope Elementary and New Hope High School were placed on academic watch status, while West Lowndes middle and high schools ranked as low-performing. New Hope Middle School was ranked as successful, but failed to meet adequate yearly progress in mathematics.
All five principals said they were aware of the problems and had made changes they hope will turn test scores around. Some of those changes include reassigning personnel and targeting struggling students for tutoring.
“We don’t give them a choice; we make them go,” said New Hope High School Principal Matt Smith.
West Lowndes High School Principal Cliff Reynolds attributed his school’s low performance in Language Arts as a personnel problem which he has corrected by reassigning teachers, offering mid-day tutoring sessions and taking other measures.
Reynolds said he was fully aware of the importance of “rigor” in lesson plans and instruction, but though West Lowndes has made “great strides,” improvements need to be made in many areas, including strengthening parent involvement via the school’s open-door policy.
“We know we’re doing some good things, we just need to refine them,” Reynolds said. “We’re not making any excuses … it’s my intention to give positive results. We will overcome this dilemma.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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