The Mississippi University for Women Foundation is trying to hire a public relations firm to help better cast the future location of Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science as a “statewide issue.”
In short, the firm will work to convince the public and the legislature to leave the residential high school at MUW, rather than move it to Mississippi State University.
Lowndes County supervisors approved a resolution Monday to commit up to $15,000 to the effort, with Columbus City Council expected to do the same at its meeting this evening. The resolution reads that relocating MSMS “would be an economic and cultural detriment” to the city, county and MUW.
The firm’s contract would be for $36,000 over six months, with the city, county and MUW Foundation each expected to put up one-third, Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston told The Dispatch.
“There may be some incidentals over that, excess travel, whatever it may be, so that’s why we put in $15,000 instead of $12,000,” Hairston said.
Hairston would not identify the public relations firm Monday, since the contract was not final. Once signed, the contract term would start July 1.
“They are a well-known firm, highly respected, and they came with high recommendations from MUW’s lobbyist and the (local) legislative delegation,” Hairston said.
MSMS has sat on the MUW campus since it opened in 1987. But after requesting proposals from MUW and MSU to house MSMS, the State Board of Education in March recommended relocating the school to MSU, where it would be integrated into the construction plan of a new Starkville High School. Per those proposals, relocation would cost roughly $85 million, and needed facility improvements to keep the school at MUW would cost $35 million.
The legislature has final say on where MSMS goes, but it did not take up the matter last session. While the issue drew plenty of local and regional attention, Hairston believes broader interest lagged since there was no bill filed.
He hopes the new PR campaign, which will employ previous coverage on the MSMS issue as well as “perfect” The W’s messaging on why it should stay in Columbus, will target larger media outlets and broaden the campaign’s reach.
“On a local level, we know what we believe when it comes to the right disposition for MSMS,” he said. “We now have a recommendation from MDE that says, ‘Move it.’ … In January, there will probably be a bill drop that would consider that move.”
Hairston hopes the campaign will capitalize on Republican majorities in the House and Senate by couching keeping the school at MUW as the fiscally conservative option. He also sees the MSU plan to colocate MSMS with the new Starkville High School – where students from each would share common and instructional space – as an effective merger of the two schools.
“If I’m a senator or representative from some other community … I couldn’t really give two hoots in heck where MSMS is,” Hairston said. “… It’s our job to put on them the fact that they are going to have to spend a large amount of money on another local school district other than their own. And they’re going to have to explain to the people they represent that they were willing to spend more than it would take to keep it here than it would take to move it.”
MUW President Nora Miller was off-campus Monday and unavailable for comment, per Tyler Wheat, the university’s communications director.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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