Leflore County supervisors are hoping that the school board that will oversee the consolidating of the county and Greenwood school districts next year will appoint a member from unrepresented areas of the county to fill a vacancy.
Championed by Supervisor Wayne Self, whose District 4 would be without a representative for a year on the consolidated school board, the Board of Supervisors called Tuesday for a new board member to be appointed from either District 4 or District 5.
The consolidated school board will initially be made up of the two members elected on Nov. 6, Dr. Kalanya Moore from District 2 and Samantha Milton from District 3, as well as two appointed members of the Greenwood School Board, Randy Clark and Deirdre Mayes.
Milton had been the third appointed member from the Greenwood board who was tabbed to sit on the consolidated board but then won the District 3 seat in the election. That left an appointed Greenwood seat open. According to school officials, state law gives the authority to the newly seated board to appoint its fifth member until the vacancy can be filled in the next election, which would be in November 2019.
Self introduced the topic by saying a recent Greenwood Commonwealth editorial on the matter was wrong to criticize the Board of Supervisors for its concern about the consolidated school district, over which the supervisors have no control. The editorial writer should “stay in his own lane,” Self said.
“I want the kids in my area to get the same representation as other kids,” Self said. “I want to fight for this.”
He pointed to Itta Bena and Rising Sun as areas of the county that will be left initially without a say in how the schools are run or who will be hired as superintendent. “Let’s get somebody from Itta Bena on there,” he said.
Other than signing off on the annual tax levy, the supervisors had no real input into the operations of the county school system even prior to the 2013 takeover by the state. The members of the county school board, disbanded with the takeover, were all elected. The Board of Supervisors also was without any special input when the Mississippi Legislature put together the law mandating the merger with the Greenwood schools.
“I can attest to the fact that citizens of Itta Bena do feel they have been unrepresented in this process,” Board Attorney Joyce Chiles said.
She said concerns over how the consolidated school board would be formed, and general questions about it, prompted a request for a meeting with the Mississippi Department of Education to discuss the matter. The exact date and location of the meeting have not been set because of the growing number of people asked to attend.
•Contact Gavin Maliska at 581-7235 or gmaliska@gwcommonwealth.com.
