Columbus Municipal School District has been left on the hook for educating dozens of former county students for which they have no state funding, and for testing those students without what some officials consider a fair opportunity to prepare them.
Since November, CMSD has taken in 32 students that were removed from Lowndes County School District because they did not meet residency requirements to attend the county schools. In all of these cases, LCSD conducted residency checks that determined the students actually live in the city school district after the deadline for Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding to be set for next school year. That means LCSD will receive the MAEP funds for the students in 2019-20, even though the district has sent them to another school district.
MAEP funding is based on average daily attendance in October and November each year, and school districts receive roughly $6,000 per student, meaning CMSD would have received about $192,000 in state funds next year if those 32 students had attended the proper school district all along. This has led CMSD to file a complaint against the county school district with the Mississippi Department of Education, both school and MDE officials confirmed.
The Dispatch had not obtained a copy of the complaint by press time.
The issue came to a head at a CMSD board review meeting on Wednesday, when Stokes Beard Principal Kimberly Gardner said state test scores for six students who arrived since January would reflect on the city district despite them being largely taught elsewhere.
CMSD board president Jason Spears specifically called out LCSD’s practices during that session.
“The school that kicked them out, they decided to send them back to our district,” Spears said. “So, let’s just say students who live in the city went to the county. When the county did the residency check after the (MAEP) check has been cashed, they send the student back here, we educate them the rest of the year but they keep the money.”
An MDE spokesperson told The Dispatch there was no mechanism for MAEP money to be transferred after it had been designated.
LCSD administrators follow students home
LCSD board attorney Jeff Smith, who also serves as a representative in the Mississippi Legislature, said the county district requires parents to provide proof of residence at the beginning of each school year — including rental agreements, mortgages and utility bills. He said some parents provide false proof at that time, so the district takes measures to catch them throughout the school year — including school administration following them home in the afternoons.
Superintendent Lynn Wright said district officials will “take parents at their word” if they don’t provide adequate proof of residence, instead asking them to sign a sworn affidavit stating they live in the county district.
“When it is reported that somebody does not live in the district, we actually go and send an administrator or (school resource officer) to check their address,” Wright said. “That’s how that happens. … Most of the changes are at the nine weeks period (late October) or the semester (December). It might have been reported and we could have put them out two weeks before the nine weeks ended, but we let them complete the nine weeks so it doesn’t create a hardship on them.”
Responding to a specific question from The Dispatch about the racial makeup of the students sent back to CMSD, Smith said most of the ones who “get caught” are minorities. Buses drop off some of them on the county side of the district line, and they walk to a dwelling on the city side, he said.
“The strange thing about it is, there’s a lot of families that have the same names (where some) go to the city school district and (others) to the county school district,” Smith said. “A lot of them tend to live in the same apartment complex. … It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that perhaps they are sisters with different families. A lot of students are coming from single-parent families. Every time you have children that are not from the nuclear family, there’s problems.
“Maybe if somebody wants to sneak into a school district and enroll, there are ways to do it,” he later added. “Now, I’m not sure how they’re doing it. The end result is, the way they get caught is when the administration just follows the school bus home and simply watches where they go and dwell. … There’s a principal out (in New Hope) that will follow them home. It’s almost like you have to be a private detective.”
Spears: Smith’s comments about CMSD ill-befit a legislator
While Smith said he isn’t aware of the MDE complaint against the county district, he understands why CMSD would attempt to recuperate the funding.
Still, he pointed to the current state accountability ratings for both districts as a reason parents would want to “sneak” their children into the county schools. LCSD is rated a B overall, while CMSD is a D district.
“The parents want to send them to the county school district,” he said. “The county schools are not going out and recruiting the kids. Those kids don’t want to go to the city school district. The county is trying their best to get them back to the city. The county is not doing anything wrong other than being a (B) school district that (students) are trying to flee to. The long and the short of it is that you have a really good school district … that attracts kids (and) you got an F or a D school they should be going to that they don’t want to go to.”
In response, Spears noted Smith’s statement was reminiscent of previous derogatory comments he’s made about students “having good reason” not to go to CMSD, which were also printed in The Dispatch. He said such comments ill-befitted a legislator whose constituency includes some CMSD patrons.
“It continues to be disheartening that a representative of this area, a representative of our parents and our students, would feel this way about CMSD when we have worked tirelessly to improve all aspects of CMSD,” Spears said. “It really is bothersome that we don’t have more support for our school district, (and) for our representative to make that comment a second time. The Columbus Municipal School Board continues to work hard with our local delegation. We don’t want to feel like in some way we are going to be left out in the cold because we may not be the preferred option by our local delegation.
“For Rep. Smith to say that about our school district, I won’t call it frustrating because we are going to continue to execute and do what needs to happen for everyone involved at CMSD,” he added. “Hopefully at some point, he’ll see the same progress and success that we see each day.”
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