A bill removing a provision in the law allowing school districts to hire relatives of the district’s superintendents and principals passed the Senate on Wednesday.
State law defines a relative as a spouse, child, sibling or parent. The bill would, however, put in place a process for spouses of superintendents to be hired.
Senate Bill 2413 says that at the time a new superintendent is hired, his or her spouse may be employed “if and only if the spouse possesses all qualifications required for holding that position at the time the spouse is hired.”
Once a spouse is hired, the school board must choose a principal to recommend or not recommend the husband or wife for employment.
Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, unsuccessfully attempted to kill the bill by making a motion to recommit it.
“I’m asking you all to think about the school districts back home and about the situation back home. How many spouses of superintendents and teachers do you know and how many problems are there?” he asked.
He said many school districts in rural areas have trouble finding qualified employees.
“This is not a loophole, this is an intentional policy decision by the Legislature,” Bryan continued.
But Sen. Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, said the suggestion for the bill came straight from the Ethics Commission, which receives complaints about violations in state government.
Tom Hood, executive director of the Commission, said in a letter to Education Committee chairmen the fact relatives of superintendents and principals can be hired in their own districts and schools is “unique to education and is not found in other areas of government.”
Hood said he was asked by the Ethics Commission to request that a bill be introduced this session.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.