If the state legislature meets for a special-call session next month after failing to pass a budget, Mississippi University for Women President Nora Miller doesn’t expect a decision on whether to relocate the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science will be made.
“But it will come up again, and so we need to defend MSMS and champion their needs,” she told the Rotary Club of Columbus at Lion Hills Center on Tuesday. “We are committed to fighting for their future and to retain their identity as a standalone school.”
Miller said relocating the school would be both an irresponsible decision by state leaders and a threat to the school’s unique identity. The solution for MSMS isn’t relocation, she said, but rather investment.
“It’s most important to MSMS students and prospective students that MSMS remains on The W campus and that it is funded so that we can provide those improvements to the residence halls and upgrade their science labs and things like that because for 35 years, there hasn’t been an investment in the facilities for them,” she said.
The residential high school for academically gifted juniors and seniors has been housed at The W since its inception in 1987, but during the last two legislative sessions, its location has come into question as school and state leaders search for a solution to the school’s facility issues and hopeful expansion.
The State Board of Education in March voted to recommend lawmakers relocate the residential high school to Mississippi State University after reviewing proposals from the two universities to house and operate the school. The board originally intended for the legislature to vote on the relocation this year, but the session ended without a bill ever dropping.
The W’s fight to keep MSMS includes ensuring the school is properly funded – a responsibility Miller said the SBE has neglected for 35 years. The proposal process, she said, shed new light on the gap between what The W provides and what it receives in return.
“It did give us the opportunity to look at what we were doing, the level of service that they were requesting and then the actual cost of what we are providing and what we need to be able to provide,” Miller said.
MSMS is currently paying The W $271,400 for services, operations and maintenance on campus, but Miller said that figure doesn’t come close to the true cost of supporting the school. That number – which covers everything from maintenance and security to library access and accounting services – is much closer to $1.3 million.
Along with $35 million for a new residential hall, the MUW proposal outlines a roughly 383% increase in operating and service fees. With MSU’s proposal requiring at least $85 million for facilities and having no mention of operating costs, Miller feels her university’s proposal is the most reasonable option for the school and the state.
“I’m hopeful that reason will prevail,” she said. “Our proposal is more economical. It’s more responsible to the state of Mississippi, and it honors who MSMS is and gives them those opportunities.”
Keeping the school where it is would also maintain its identity, Miller said. That would be harder to do in Starkville, where MSU is proposing a joint campus with a new Starkville High School, where MSMS students could be taking classes alongside traditional SHS students, she said.
“I think it’s a grab to get state funds for a local high school, but I think every other community in the state, when that happens, they need to be asking their legislators, ‘Where’s our $85 million for a high school in our area?’” Miller said.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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