Citizens who showed up for the quarterly Town and Tower meeting about the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science left Thursday with talking points to support keeping the school in Columbus.
After a presentation from MSMS administrators about the school’s history, partnerships and current endeavors, Executive Director Ginger Tedder opened the floor for questions. The first of which asked why MSMS should remain at the Mississippi University for Women campus in Columbus instead of relocating it to the Mississippi State campus in Starkville.
MSMS Director for Academics Thomas Easterling reminded the crowd that decision was the purview of the legislature and Mississippi Department of Education.
“As professionals who are at MSMS, what we can’t do is declare allegiance one way or another because it’s outside of our purview,” he said during the meeting in The W’s Hogarth Dining Hall. “We ultimately have to do what MDE and the legislature tell us.”
A bill proposing MSMS be relocated was first introduced in the Senate in February. It was amended to propose merging MUW and MSU. It was amended again to propose a feasibility study to look into the viability of MSMS and MUW before it ultimately failed in the Senate.
Easterling’s answer was insufficient for some in attendance. Another citizen asked what talking points could be used to support not relocating MSMS, prompting Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston to take the podium.
Hairston told the crowd he is working with MUW administration to develop concise talking points about why moving MSMS would be a mistake.
“One is the safety of the school,” Hairston said. “Here on the MUW campus, MSMS students are given the ability to move around campus much more freely than they probably could on the Mississippi State campus.
“Another reason is … MSMS is a state school. It is not a part of a consolidated school district that is relying on ad valorem taxes,” he added, referring to a now-shelved proposal last year that would have built a new MSMS and Starkville High School as a megacampus at MSU. “… If you change that, it will change the very fabric of MSMS.”
The plan now, Hairston said, is to have a list of talking points against relocation to provide citizens and legislators with before the summer ends.
District 17 Sen. Chuck Younger, R-Lowndes County, attended the meeting and told The Dispatch that the discussion will likely be brought up in the next legislative session. He said he still supports keeping MSMS at The W.
“It’s not really about Columbus,” he said. “It’s about the students. Look, if I was (a 16-year-old), put me on the campus of Mississippi State, and it would be nothing but trouble.”
District 39 Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, who also attended the meeting, said she supports keeping the school in Columbus.
“As a parent of an alum, I couldn’t be any more supportive of doing more through the legislature as far as funding and helping with facilities as well as making sure we keep this wonderful school in our community in Columbus,” she told The Dispatch.
State funding for MSMS
MSMS has been located on The W campus since it was founded in 1987. During Thursday’s presentation, Tedder shared that the school’s $23,616 expenditure per student is significantly less than that of its counterparts in neighboring states. That translates to a state operations appropriation of about $5.7 million.
By comparison, The Alabama School for Math and Science receives $9.9 million, roughly $38,500 per student, and Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts receives $13.2 million or about $53,041 per student.
When excluding room and board, Easterling said the number is on par with what most public schools spend per student.
MSMS has also had 15 National Merit finalists graduate from the school, more than its counterparts in Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana, Tedder said.
“We are great stewards of the budget the state of Mississippi gives us,” she said. “We get results with the resources that are allocated to MSMS.”
During the presentation, Tedder and Easterling also touched on the achievements MSMS alumni have made across the state and country.
Tedder said the administration plans to launch a Partners in Education program in August that would allow the school to partner with local, state and national organizations with similar goals. Emma Richardson, one of the original MSMS faculty members, shared the history of the school’s founding.
Becky Scott, who’s daughter will be a senior at MSMS this year, said she particularly enjoyed learning about the history of the school and the leaders who founded MSMS.
“It was kind of cool to hear the names of those leaders who had so much to do with this,” she told The Dispatch. “I hope that we have those kinds of leaders in our community now to sort of move forward and help us with these tough decisions and things that are on the line.”
Thinking of her own daughter, Scott said she wouldn’t be in support of relocating MSMS.
“I would never be comfortable with her being on a huge campus like Mississippi State,” she said. “I also really don’t think it’s a great idea to merge the school with a different school district. I think that kind of defeats the purpose of what they’re trying to do here.”
Scott said she would also like to see more action from legislators in providing funds for the school to update its facilities.
Tedder told The Dispatch after the meeting she was proud to see so much support for MSMS from the community.
“I’m not surprised that Columbus and Lowndes County came to support MSMS,” she said. “It’s great to share our founding with everyone and to share our future and where we are now. … But it’s more important for us to talk about where we want to go.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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