Leflore Legacy Academy has received $150,000 from the federal government to purchase new supplies and technology.
Leflore Legacy and three other public charter schools in Mississippi received a total of $600,000 from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which was approved by Congress in December.
Dr. Tamala Boyd Shaw, executive director and head of school, said Leflore Legacy is already looking at earmarking funds to purchase updated Chromebooks for students and technology for Project Lead the Way classes. These classes include the eighth grade robotics class and the app creators class.
She said the Chromebooks would be especially useful in helping students gain high marks on state assessments since the tests are now fully online. “We were very, very excited to just find out we got the funds, period,” Shaw said.
The school was notified last week in a phone call from Dr. Lisa Karmacharya, executive director of the Mississippi Charter Authorizer Board, that the institution was chosen for the grant funding.
Karmacharya worked with U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on the grant application process. Shaw said that though she is unsure of what the exact disbursement schedule will be, an information session is planned for the recipients next week.
“I’m anticipating having access to the funds before the end of this school year so we can budget for the next fiscal year,” she said.
The grant helps alleviate Leflore Legacy’s responsibility to supplement what it receives in state and local funding..
“This is why donations and grants are really important for us, and of course our state financial support and federal grant awards are based on our enrollment size,” she said.
Currently, the school serves about 240 students from sixth to eighth grade. Eighth grade was only added at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, and that is one of the factors that allowed the school to receive the federal grant.
Grants were given to schools that added grades in the last year, although Shaw said the school had already planned to expand before the grants became available.
- Contact Katherine Parker at 662-581-7239 or kparker@gwcommonwealth.com.
