Donnie Cook’s tenure at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science may not have yielded the facilities he wanted, but because of him the school’s email system is more secure.
The school’s former executive director mass emailed students and parents from a private address on Oct. 5, 2023, six days after he was fired.
Officials from both MSMS and the Mississippi Department of Education called Cook’s email “inappropriate” and indicated he shouldn’t have even had access to school listservs after his employee account was disabled.
The Dispatch obtained Cook’s Oct. 5 email, along with reactions from a school and MDE official, through a public records request related to Cook’s efforts to relocate MSMS from Mississippi University for Women to Mississippi State University.
In Cook’s email, he again claims he was fired Sept. 29 for continuing to advocate for relocation even after MDE officials told him to stop.
“My unwillingness to go quietly into that goodnight (sic) is because I want the best educational opportunities for you,” he wrote, noting he only pursued relocation because students requested it.
He encourages students to ask their legislators to consider all options for MSMS and tells them he intends to email information to every state lawmaker. For students thinking, “there’s got to be more to it that he’s not telling us,” he includes a link to his blog where he “outlined all the details, embarrassing or not.”
“The circumstances of that departure were abrupt and sudden,” Cook told The Dispatch in a phone interview this week. “That has never happened in the history of MSMS. … I just wanted to say goodbye to the students.”
Though his email addressed students, he thought it appropriate to copy their parents. He did not send it to staff.
The email was sent using a listserv, which is technology that allows someone to email groups of people by sending an email to a single email address.
Access to school listservs, he said, was “an availability in the system that I knew about.”
“If you know what to type, you can do it from any email,” he told The Dispatch. “…That’s something that (was) accessible to an outsider if you know how to do it.”
That concerned Donna Boone, MDE’s chief academic officer, according to Oct. 6 email exchanges between her and Interim MSMS Director Ginger Tedder. Since then, the school has worked with MDE to strengthen security measures and close access to the student listserv to the general public.
“Dr. Donnie Cook inappropriately used knowledge he gained while serving as the executive director of MSMS to send an email to the student body after his employment at MSMS ended,” an MDE spokesperson told The Dispatch on Thursday via email. “MDE provided technical assistance to MSMS to ensure no external parties can email the student body.”
Cook said no one from MDE ever contacted him about his email.
After his departure from MSMS, Cook said, he emailed an information packet to all legislators. It included facility conditions, surveys related to relocation and a video of an MSMS advisory board meeting where those issues came up.
He didn’t get many responses.
“A couple of acknowledgements were it,” he said. “Maybe 10 people clicked on the video.”
Cook said he never spoke or met with District 43 Sen. Dennis DeBar, before or after the senator filed an ill-fated bill to relocate MSMS to MSU.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
