Mayor Parker Wiseman twice cast tie-breaking votes Tuesday that ultimately decided who would become the newest member of the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District board.
Aldermen split 3-3 before Wiseman’s vote selected Melissa Luckett to serve a five-year term on the school board. Ward 4 Alderman Jason Walker recused from both the discussions and vote since his wife works for the school district.
Luckett, a project coordinator for Mississippi State University’s Research and Curriculum Unit, will replace Jenny Turner, who opted not to apply for reappointment. Her term officially begins March 5.
The mother of two children in the school district, Luckett has volunteered for about 10 years with local public schools, including stints as co-president for the Parent-Teacher Organization at Sudduth Elementary and PTO president at Armstrong Middle School.
“I appreciate the board’s consideration of me for this appointment and for allowing me the opportunity to continue serving as we work to move the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District forward,” Luckett said in an emailed statement to The Dispatch after the meeting.
Prince falls short
Tuesday’s selection also marked the second time aldermen passed over MSU’s Debra Prince, an associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Foundations who also applied in 2016 for a post that went to Anne Stricklin — wife of then MSU athletic director Scott Stricklin.
Ward 2 Alderman Lisa Wynn first motioned to appoint Prince following a roughly hour-long interview process where she was noticeably combative, at times, with Luckett and markedly friendlier to Prince. After a tie vote on that motion — in which aldermen Roy A. Perkins of Ward 6 and Henry Vaughn of Ward 7 sided with Wynn while Ben Carver (Ward 1), David Little (Ward 3) and Scott Maynard (Ward 5) opposed — Wiseman voted no. Maynard followed with a motion to appoint Luckett.
Recognizing the possibility of a tie, since an even number of aldermen sat for the vote, Wiseman announced before either motion how he planned to vote if required, citing Luckett’s decade of volunteering with the district and her involvement with the process to consolidate the Starkville and Oktibbeha County schools that culminated in 2015. He said Luckett had been integrally involved as a liaison between the district and concerned parents of county students during consolidation and had also been a key advocate for a $30 million Partnership School between SOCSD and MSU’s College of Education that will soon be built on MSU’s campus and serve grades 6-7.
“Any district in this state would be lucky to have both of you (serving on the board),” he told the applicants from the board table. “… I will leave here satisfied, no matter which of you is appointed, that the school district is in good hands.”
SOCSD Board Vice President Keith Coble, in a phone interview with The Dispatch after the meeting, acknowledged Luckett’s service record with the district and said he looks forward to working with her on the board.
“She’s a tireless worker who has demonstrated good judgment and the kind of temperament that would make a great school board member,” Coble said.
Prince told The Dispatch after the vote that she wasn’t surprised by the margin. She added she plans to take advantage of another opportunity to join the board after Stricklin leaves her post this summer to follow her husband to Gainesville, Florida, where he now serves as University of Florida athletic director.
“I will apply again and again and again,” Prince said.
Luckett declined to comment on the margin of her appointment vote.
The interviews
In Luckett’s interview, Wynn needled the candidate on her lack of professional background in education, especially in a line of questioning about the school district’s “C” grade in 2015-16 Mississippi’s public school accountability ratings.
Specifically, she pressed Luckett hard on not picking up on the “F” rating for the now-closed East Elementary School, which Wynn said is particularly alarming because elementary schools commonly demonstrate the best proficiency scores in a district.
Luckett, in her response, brushed aside Wynn’s probe, along with the alderman’s assertion school board members need to have a professional background in education.
“I have the ability to learn what I need to learn as a board member,” said Luckett, who holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in public policy and administration. “You can have a board of all PhDs and have a failing school district. You can also have a board with no PhDs and have a successful school district.
“What counts most is (whether) you have people on the board who care about the students and can pull in others who do, as well.”
By contrast, Prince — who has 13 years of experience teaching special education on the K-12 level and has taught at MSU since 1999 — spoke about SOCSD’s “average” rating during her interview without being asked and echoed Wynn’s point about East Elementary’s “F” when that question arose.
“Oktibbeha County and Starkville are not average and we shouldn’t be rated as average,” Prince told aldermen. “I know this district has great teachers, but we still have students who are failing to achieve academically.”
The NAACP weighs in
Though both school board applicants are black, Starkville’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People supported Prince because she is a Starkville native, local chapter president Chris Taylor said.
“The NAACP believes we need somebody on the school board who is from here and graduated from the district,” Taylor said during a phone call he made to The Dispatch after the meeting. “Right now, there’s nobody on the board who’s from here. They all came here.”
Taylor also insinuated Tuesday’s interviews were a farce because aldermen “all had their minds made up” before they voted. He specifically criticized four aldermen — Little, Maynard, Perkins and Vaughn — for not asking the applicants any questions during their interviews and said Wiseman’s pre-emptive announcement of how he would vote in the event of a tie “prejudiced the board.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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