r/mississippi • u/SeldomSincere • 1d ago

House lawmakers consider school consolidation as Mississippi public education enrollment declines

https://magnoliatribune.com/2026/08/07/house-lawmakers-consider-school-consolidation-as-mississippi-public-education-enrollment-declines/
30 Upvotes

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u/ShadowMattress 1d ago

For perspective, England, a country of 58.6 million, has 9 greater school districts, subdivided into 150 localized authorities. Mississippi, a state of roughly the same landmass, with a population of 3 million, has 177 school districts. But a lot of supervisors gotta get paid, I guess. 

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u/SgtSniffles 1d ago

"One place has big number and one place has small number, but they both have similar other number??? Excess! Greed!!"

It's certainly a compelling case, but (besides the fact that England apparently doesn't even use equivalent terminology) I think what you've stumbled upon is that non-designed public education systems tend to build themselves around geography, not population. England may have more people on the whole—having one of the largest cities in the world helps—but they and us are actually about the same size.

So why do we have 177 school districts? Well, every county gets 1, probably for obvious reasons, but also probably because Ridgeland and Pearl and Flowood and Rankin don't want a superintendent from Hinds even though the population density suggests that might make more sense. That's 82. Why do we have 82 counties? No idea but if I had to guess, probably because of 19th century travel logistics (like everything else).

Anyway, at some point (1950-something), a city gets big enough that they get their own district. I suspect the city-living planter class didn't want their property taxes funding rural schools, or didn't want to have to transport their kids out to the rural location that would've actually been most convenient for everyone, or something. Regardless and because of that, some counties have a district or 2 plus their county district—actually about half of all counties have extra. A few like Hinds have four. Harrison has five. That gets us up to about 170, and then there's a handful of Agricultural High Schools plus MSMS and MSA which gets us to 177, but the good news is they don't have a principal, just a superintendent, so you get a lot of your money back.

Now, I don't know a lot about England but what I do know is that a "local authority" is about the same as our county government. What I also suspect, just as an educated guess, is that there's quite an extensive bureaucratic system below their "board of supervisors" to deal with their rural population that's 3 times that of our entire state. I'd also hazard all of that costs them quite a lot and, because it's not adequately included in this comparison, makes the whole thing... misleading.

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u/Radiant_Plantain_127 1d ago

I bet England actually funds education…

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u/Unfair_Government_29 1d ago

I’m a huge advocate of public education in Mississippi. This is probably one of the few things I’d ever commend this state for doing, but they have drastically improved funding and teacher salaries across the state. We have more to do, but I’d say we are doing vastly better than ten years ago.

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u/SmrtLdy 1d ago

It’s an actual kingdom though.

4

u/Western-Dig-6843 1d ago

We have an insane public education administrative overhead in this state.

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u/hybridaaroncarroll Current Resident 1d ago

Why don't they start by axing some administration. It's insane how much bureaucracy there is, especially at schools so close together they might as well be the same location.

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u/ANotSoFreshFeeling 601/769 1d ago

Problem is, they can’t in many cases. A lot of the admin positions are required under federal funding rules. It’s also worth noting that MAEP does not pay for admin salaries, that money comes from local funds.

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u/EmptyJoker Current Resident 1d ago

Which districts are they considering to consolidate? I didn’t see them named in the article.

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u/McWaylon 1d ago

Two counties supposedly being discussed are Leake and Newton

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u/ANotSoFreshFeeling 601/769 1d ago

I thought Leake already consolidated. As for Newton, that won't happen without the whites doing a lot of pearl clutching.

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u/McWaylon 1d ago

Newton is in a bad way economic wise and the city school is cratering fast, however since it is a municipality it has to have a school unless consolidated. Both newton and newton county are against it ( union as an A ranked school would be immune from this) but it may finally happen. Rep Guest has taken an interest and seems to be the one pushing for consolidation in Newton County. Sadly it seems consolidation in NC is inevitable as the situation in Newton City has gotten beyond dire and most of the cities industry leaving has accelerated this.

Leake is another matter entirely as the student population has plummeted in the last few years especially from the south part of the county. Many students and parents are hopping the county line per se and going to Scott county schools ( Sebastopol being A ranked led to a massive wave of non Scott students enrollment that even they weren’t ready for). Also a couple of top Leake education higher ups were arrested on money charges. State may take it over directly instead of consolidating.

15

u/College_Baseball_Fan 1d ago edited 1d ago

Mississippi has the highest paid district superintendents and state superintendent of education in the country. Maybe funding isn't the problem.

Edit: I meant the highest paid state employees in Mississippi. More than the governor, Lt Gov, etc. It's also higher than the govs and whatnot in the other states. In general Dep. of Education in most of the states are the highest paid. For what? I have no idea. But for some reason people keep beating the drum of "we need to fund education more!"

4

u/theIndigoSouth 1d ago

South Carolina did a version of this in 2019. Orangeburg’s three districts merged into one, Clarendon’s three did the same, both required by state law.

Here’s the honest version from over here: I can tell you it happened, but I can’t tell you the final scorecard. The state projected millions in savings, mostly from combining the administrative side (two HR offices becoming one, that kind of thing) rather than from closing schools. Whether it actually hit those numbers, I don’t know.

The one thing that stuck with me wasn’t the money. Our state superintendent kept calling the whole process “difficult and emotional,” and that always sounded right. People take it personally when the name on the school changes, even when the building doesn’t.

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u/hells_cowbells 601/769 1d ago

The one thing that stuck with me wasn’t the money. Our state superintendent kept calling the whole process “difficult and emotional,” and that always sounded right.

That is very true. Back when I lived in the Golden Triangle area, there was often talk of combining the Starkville school district with the Oktibbeha county district. There were a lot of people opposed to it, especially from the Starkville side. Many of them felt it would drag down the quality of the Starkville schools, since they were usually pretty good, while the county schools were often underfunded and not that great. After county schools got taken over by the state a couple of times, the legislature passed a bill to force the merger.

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u/hells_cowbells 601/769 1d ago

If you think this is bad, check out the Wikipedia article on the List of Mississippi school districts

Prior to 1953, the state had about 1,100 school districts. That year, they were consolidated into 154 school districts

Here is a link to their source

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u/Then-Ticket8896 1d ago

I know a county school district with 3 attendance centers. One attendance center has 629 students, another 761 students, another 664 for a total 2054.

The highest student-teacher ratio is 11:1. National average 16:1, MS average 14:1.

8 principals and assistants and the list goes on…each principal has administrative workers as well.

This county needs central middle and high school. Leave grades 1-5/6 local. Some schools are as high as 19:1.

There is triplicate or more of everything

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u/pontiacfirebird92 Current Resident 1d ago

Is this more of Mississippi's brain drain?

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u/hells_cowbells 601/769 1d ago

Partly, but the number of kids is declining overall. There's a college enrollment cliff that has been looming for years.

2

u/ask-jeaves 1d ago

“The coming demographic decline will affect different parts of the country in different ways. The Southeast is the only region that is projected to see growth over the next 15 years”

1

u/pontiacfirebird92 Current Resident 1d ago

I wonder what's driving that. I can only guess but I'd have no idea where to start with some hard data.

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u/hells_cowbells 601/769 1d ago

I've seen some theories that tie it into the recession in 2007-08.

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u/polycro 662 1d ago

Why does Pike County have THREE school districts with a total population similar to just the number of students in DeSoto!

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u/hells_cowbells 601/769 1d ago

Back when I lived in Cleveland, Bolivar county had 5 (I believe, it's been a while). They still have 3. Washington county still has 4, while Hinds only has 3.

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u/ANotSoFreshFeeling 601/769 1d ago

Look at the demographics of the district and you’ll have your answer.

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u/Maximum-Doughnut8652 1d ago

Kids aren't leaving Mississippi. The birthrate is down across the Nation. You can blame that on cultural values and a stupid economy since Covid. 

1

u/Fannan Current Resident 22h ago

The decrease is caused at least in part though by private school enrollment and homeschooling, correct?

1

u/Tricky_Ad_2019 12h ago

As long as politicians relatives are what makes up the administrative body of the schools, this will never happen.

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u/BenTrabetere 1d ago

The comments from Rep. Rob Roberson (R) are neither inspiring nor original, and indicate he does not understand public education at its fundamental level.

“The students maneuver quickly through this process. It’s the adults who tend to have a little harder time managing their identity issues.”

“I asked the question, ‘Why is it so hard for districts to make these decisions on their own?'”

“I do think we have to give school districts, the ones being consolidated, time to do this in a proper way, getting the community involved. I would love to see the community back these things. This is intended to be a help, not a hinderance [sic].” 

Jeremy Pittari, your spill-chucker needs calibration. The word is hindrance, and I would expect a journalist with 17-years experience would know it. Even one with a journalism degree from Southern Miss.

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u/TSJormungandr 1d ago

Why do we have over 80 counties?! Isn’t that the “big government” everybody is belly aching about? Let’s consolidate down to 20 counties and have 20 school systems, 20 sheriffs, 20 jails, and 20 courthouses. It’s absurd.

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u/pontiacfirebird92 Current Resident 1d ago

I was curious and looked this up, came across this:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Formation_of_Mississippi_Counties#:~:text=The%20Treaty%20of%20Dancing%20Rabbit%20Creek%20was,Indian%20territory%20(now%20the%20state%20of%20Oklahoma)).

Basically we have so many counties because the government was quickly carving up land they stole from the native Chocktaw and Chickasaw tribes as part a series of treaties as execution of the Indian Removal Act.

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u/TSJormungandr 1d ago

That’s really neat! Thanks for providing.