The Jackson Public School District unveiled its adjusted school consolidation plan Tuesday night, adding one elementary school and removing four from its initial list released earlier this fall.
In October, JPS district leadership introduced a plan to close 16 school buildings because of declining enrollment in the district. The district has lost around 9,500 students between the 2015-16 and 2023-24 school years, about a third of its population. The district has also previously consolidated schools.
The following school buildings are on the updated closure or consolidation list:
- Dawson Elementary School
- G. N. Smith Elementary School
- Lake Elementary School
- Lester Elementary School
- Marshall Elementary School
- Obama IB Elementary (delayed to 2025)
- Raines Elementary School
- Shirley Elementary School
- Sykes Elementary School
- Wells APAC Elementary (delayed to 2025)
- Chastain Middle School
- Whitten Middle School
- Wingfield High School
Clausell Elementary School, Green Elementary School, and Key Elementary School were removed from the list after feedback from the community about enrollment from local neighborhoods and programming at the schools, according to Superintendent Errick Greene.
“We got feedback on many of these schools, if not all of the schools, most of them,” Greene said.
Oak Forest Elementary School was also removed from the list and replaced with Marshall Elementary School. The district did not respond to a request for comment on this move by press time.
Greene said the consolidation of Obama and Wells Elementary schools with the middle schools they feed to (Northwest IB and Bailey APAC respectively) will be delayed one year to allow for renovations at Bailey APAC Middle School to be completed.
Greene elaborated on plans for closed school buildings, identifying three categories buildings will be sorted in: sale/lease, redevelopment, or demolition. He outlined plans for the creation of a Facilities Repurposing Advisory Committee which would make recommendations to the board for each building. A consultant would run the advisory committee and apply for private and public funding to aid in redevelopment efforts.
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson has also offered to help the district identify federal funds that could be used to help repurpose closed buildings.
Board President Ed Sivak expressed concern that the repurposing efforts will be sidelined after the board votes on the proposal later this month and said he wants specific goals and plans for the advisory committee.
“I’ve heard that this will take a long time,” he said. “I’ve heard numbers as long as a decade, that it will take a decade to redevelop this number of properties. We can’t use that as an excuse to not act with urgency.”
When asked about possibly laying off teachers, Greene said the district does not expect many, if any, teachers or school support staff to be laid off because of the amount of turnover the district sees each year and the number of teachers on emergency licenses. Greene said layoffs are more possible for principals or assistant principals. He also restated that the district is planning to reduce the size of its central office in proportion with the consolidation efforts.
Cynthia Thompson, the board member for Ward 6, also brought up renaming high schools in south Jackson to give students a new common identity, something Greene said the district is exploring but did not have concrete recommendations for at this time.
“The whole time my children were matriculating through JPS schools, south Jackson, Wingfield in particular, was not being represented (on the school board),” Thompson said. “I just want to publicly say that and let it be on the record that I know it, I recognize it, I see it, and I have felt it before I ever sat in this seat. I just hate that we have gotten to this place where it’s almost too late to do anything with it except what we need to do. And if we are going to do that, the only way I can see of right-sizing it to make it be fair is for the entire south Jackson to come together.”
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