STARKVILLE – Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science is no longer part of the plans for the new Starkville High School, but a new specialty school could take its place in the design.
District 43 Rep. Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, who chairs the House Education Committee, told The Dispatch on Thursday that Mississippi State University and the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District had discussed potentially building a new specialty school alongside a new SHS on university property.
“(SOCSD) and MSU may very well choose a different option as to a specialty school,” Roberson wrote in a text to The Dispatch Thursday. “… The District and University have discussed an engineering or cyber security-type school, however it may be something completely different. These are questions that will have to develop.”
Roberson said the new specialty school, if it materializes, “possibly” would be residential, but those details had not been fleshed out.
“Nothing has been determined or decided,” he said. “We’re just floating ideas around.”
Sid Salter, vice president of strategic communications and director of public affairs at MSU, was very clear that MSMS – a residential high school now located at the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus – is not part of the construction plan for SHS. He would not comment on the involvement of a new specialty school.
“MSU’s broad range of STEM expertise presents many potential opportunities for future growth that capitalizes on both existing and emerging technologies,” Salter wrote in a text to The Dispatch.
Superintendent Tony McGee and MSU President Mark Keenum signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday before a crowd of city and university leaders at Partnership Middle School, agreeing for the entities to partner in planning for the new Starkville High School.
The high school will sit on the north edge of MSU’s campus next to Partnership Middle, a lot valued between $5 million and $10 million, Salter said.
MSU previously floated the property as a potential location for MSMS after the State Board of Education asked MSU and The W to provide proposals for housing and operating the high school. The board in March recommended MSU’s plan for legislative approval, but the legislature did not revisit the matter before this year’s session ended.
McGee said Biloxi-based architecture firm MP Design Group has already started preliminary designs for the new high school. He anticipates the design process to take between six and eight months and hopes to see the new facility welcoming students by 2027.
“Right now we’re going through the process of looking at design phases, programming for boys and girls, what Mississippi State may be able to offer for us to be able to provide for boys and girls and what we can offer too,” McGee said.
Keenum said donating the property would be the university’s main contribution toward the new high school. MSU will also contribute with some in-kind services, like providing learning opportunities for Starkville High students, though details of the university’s involvement haven’t been fully outlined.
“We really haven’t got all that shaken out yet,” McGee said. “We’re still in the programming part of it. We’ll know a little more six months down the line what that looks like, but we know that MSU has a current space in Partnership Middle School, and I’m sure they’re going to have a footprint in our high school.”
Partnership has programming connected to the university, including field trips and extracurricular activities on campus, labs and projects hosted by educators.
SOCSD board members voted in July to authorize borrowing up to $125 million in bonds for building the high school, increasing the district’s total borrowing capacity by about $39 million. Issuing those bonds is delayed until next year.
While cost estimates for the construction are still unclear, McGee said he hopes to borrow less than the full $125 million available.
“We hope we don’t have to go that high because we don’t want to overburden the taxpayer,” McGee told The Dispatch Thursday. “We will try to keep it as economical as possible, making sure that we’re good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.”
Roberson said he will also pursue legislative funding, though he has not determined the exact amount.
“That number is not set yet,” Roberson told The Dispatch. “Obviously I want as much for our community as possible. However, we have to determine what we will use said funds for and as a community we have to decide what that looks like.”
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