COLUMBUS – Five years.
That’s the window Ginger Tedder, executive director for Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, gave before years of deferred maintenance due to underfunding leads to a “major issue” in the school’s residence halls.
“We are at the point of MSMS that for us to have a bright future, we need a major investment,” Tedder told Rotarians on Tuesday at Lion Hills Center. “We need new facilities. We need to create the student experience that the best and brightest in the state of Mississippi need and deserve.”
Tedder’s presentation to Rotary Club of Columbus comes after two companion bills aiming to expand MSMS and reshape its funding structure died on the Senate calendar and in the House Education Committee.
Either bill, if passed, would have allowed MSMS to expand enrollment to sophomores, provide designation required for the school to apply for federal grant funding and make MSMS its own fiscal agent.
“It wasn’t that (the bills) did not have support,” Tedder told The Dispatch after the meeting. “It was truly a series of decisions and delays that didn’t get it off the calendar. But we have a whole other year to plan, which is not a bad thing.”
In the meantime, Tedder said she and Thomas Easterling, director of academic affairs at MSMS, have been speaking to civic groups and lawmakers across the state, sharing the residential high school’s goals and its challenges, particularly the need for additional funding.
MSMS, when compared to its sister schools in neighboring states, operates with significantly less funding per pupil while producing comparable – if not stronger – outcomes, according to figures provided by Easterling.
“If you look at the amount of money they’ve spent over the years, (the state has) gotten an incredible return because most of the students stay in state for college and because it is a way for this state to show that it values our best and brightest students,” he said.
Sustaining MSMS requires a “conscious decision” from the Legislature to do so, Easterling said, pointing to the Alabama School for Math and Science’s recently built $30 million research facility.
“The very next year (after it was built), their enrollment was the highest they’ve ever had,” he said. “Our students are like people everywhere else. They want to go where the investment is. They want to see nicer, newer things.”
With the current state of MSMS facilities on The W campus, where the school has been housed since its inception in 1987, Tedder said investments are imperative for the school to expand.
“We have facility limitations right now, and the investment has to be made,” Tedder said. “We’re having very rich conversations across the state about that, and we’re growing our network.”
Those “rich conversations,” Tedder said, are happening “on all levels,” from community meetings to individual lawmakers to legislative committee chairs, focused on the need for long-term funding changes.
“We’re making it real to them,” Tedder said. “We have students who go and visit (the Legislature) every year … just showing them, demonstrating in real, graphic, experiential ways that MSMS is a great steward of the money.”
As for turning conversations into progress, Tedder said she believes steady advocacy will eventually move the needle, especially with help from local stakeholders.
“Sometimes grassroots efforts are the best,” she told Rotarians. “Y’all know us best as an organization and as a school, and you value us being here. We value being here. … (Legislators are) hearing it from the school. We would love y’all to share the message about what we do and the investment that we need.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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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 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
