Mississippi Today (https://mississippitoday.org/author/kelsey-davis/)
Kelsey Davis is from Mobile, Ala., and currently lives in Cleveland, where she works as one of our Mississippi Delta-based reporters covering education and intersecting issues. Kelsey has a dual degree in journalism and Spanish from Auburn University and worked as an editorial intern at Texas Monthly and a courts reporter at the Montgomery Advertiser. Prior to joining Mississippi Today August 2017, she won awards for her reporting on public housing and the life of a parolee re-entering society.
State Board of Education approves a one-time only extension for the 734 teachers who did not meet the requirements to come back due to a licensing issue.
Recently, Olecia James and Jasmine Shepard talked to a group of educators, parents and students from Newark, New Jersey, during a panel discussion about experiences in the Cleveland School District.
Mississippi Department of Education says that the rules haven’t changed but the problems are arising now because local school leaders did not pay close enough attention to those requirements. Educators say “there is no confusion here.”
Cash-strapped school districts around the state are opting to propose bond issues, which if the community votes in favor of, raises local taxes.
Dozens of teachers in the Delta and perhaps more around the state may be ineligible to renew their licenses. The Mississippi Department of Education says that the issue is a result of school district leaders misunderstanding the requirements.
Cleveland School District is facing a second lawsuit alleging racial discrimination but for Olecia James, who finished her freshman year at Alcorn State as a ROTC Cadet with a 4.0 GPA, it’s about “controlling what you can control.”
Audit says if out of classroom spending “had been kept the same … over the last ten years,” Mississippi could give teachers an $11,000 pay raise. Education advocates say report is overly broad and not fair.
Mississippi law explicitly forbids striking by teachers, who can be fined and barred from teaching in the state for participating in a walkout.
Some of the 19 bills introduced didn’t pass because the money wasn’t there to implement them, lawmaker says and advocates say pay raise that was passed not enough to recruit in critical teacher shortage areas like the Delta.
Massachusetts senator talked comfortably about race as she toured neighborhoods in Cleveland and Greenville, and residents there were hopeful after seeing “a presidential candidate to come to the Delta.”
Ole Miss basketball players, playing against Georgia during the protest, knelt during the National Anthem to call attention to “hate groups coming to our school.”
In several districts in Mississippi, a fifth of teachers are uncertified. One reason is that teacher candidates struggle to meet certification requirements. After years in which little action has been taken to address the teacher shortage crisis, the state recently took steps to help more candidates qualify to become teachers.
An increasing number of school districts in Mississippi have turned to online education programs as they face a critical shortage of certified teachers. Students say the lack of an in-person expert teacher, who can answer questions and spend time with students who are struggling, takes a toll on their education.
In the past 20 years, the number of uncertified teachers in Mississippi’s schools has increased. But in the state’s poorest schools, many of them in the Delta, the numbers far exceed the state average.
The project developers say the company is on solid financial footing and the hotel will open this fall