| Magee Courier-Simpson County News

Tue, 08/24/2021 - 01:51 PM

Simpson County School District’s leadership has had to make some tough decisions due to a significant rise in COVID-19 cases during the last month.

Ask Me Anything: COVID-19 in Mississippi with Will Stribling

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Tue, 08/24/2021 - 10:12 AM

Text Will Stribling your COVID-19 questions and get answers in real time every Monday 12 pm-1 pm CST! Sign up to participate.

NextGen: Millennials and Gen-Z Mississippians respond to state issues

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Tue, 08/24/2021 - 10:00 AM

The Pfizer vaccine is administered during a free COVID19 vaccination event held at New Horizon Church International in partnership with the Mississippi State Department of Health, Wednesday, August 4, 2021 in Jackson. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were available to those 12 years of age and older. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Natchez-Adams School District poised to require employees to get COVID-19 vaccination

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Fri, 08/20/2021 - 01:24 PM

The board for Natchez-Adams schools on Tuesday took the next step to require district employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.

The board voted unanimously to approve a four-part proposal that includes all employees getting vaccinated within a 30-day period of being notified and an incentive program to encourage vaccinations. The plan also proposes the board and administration meet with individuals who refuse to be vaccinated to determine next steps.

If Natchez-Adams moves forward with such a policy, it would be the first known school district in the state to do so.

History Is Lunch: Carolyn Brown and Ellen Ruffin, "The de Grummond Children's Literature Collection"

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Fri, 08/20/2021 - 11:36 AM

On August 18, 2021, Carolyn J. Brown and Ellen Hunter Ruffin presented “The de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection at USM” as part of the History Is Lunch series.

Student Center on the campus of Jackson State University. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

IHL board chooses not to focus on the pandemic as COVID cases surge

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Fri, 08/20/2021 - 11:00 AM

The coronavirus pandemic was mentioned just a handful of times during the Institutions of Higher Learning’s nearly two-hour-long meeting Thursday, even though classes at Mississippi’s public universities started this week amid the worst wave yet of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students and staffers wear masks on the first day of school in the Cleveland School District on Aug. 9, 2021. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

COVID-19 cases in children rapidly increasing in Mississippi

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Thu, 08/19/2021 - 05:00 PM

Kayla Dowdle of Nesbit was looking forward to a rare beach getaway with friends. As the mother of four — including two-year-old twins — and a nurse, kid-free vacations were hard to come by.

But when her five-year-old started complaining of ear pain and showing signs of conjunctivitis, or pink eye, in the days before her trip, she had a feeling something was off. She took him to his pediatrician on July 20, and a nurse practitioner assessed him. He wasn’t coughing or feverish.

Study: Mississippi tax laws place higher burden on people of color

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Thu, 08/19/2021 - 03:48 PM

Black and Hispanic Mississippians pay a larger percentage of income in state and local taxes than higher earning white Mississippians, a new study says.

“Black households pay an average of 8.7% of their income in state and local tax while Hispanic families pay 9.1%,” according to a recently released study by non-profit One Voice, based on data compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “Those rates are significantly above the statewide average tax rate of 8.4% and the average rate paid by white households of 8.2%.”

Crew members work on set of "Mysterious Circumstance: The Death of Meriwether Lewis." The movie was one of many shot in Mississippi during the ongoing film production renaissance in the state. Credit: Six Shooter Studios

Lights, cameras… Jackson? Mississippi’s production boom fosters a budding film workforce

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Thu, 08/19/2021 - 02:12 PM

Katrina Kinder assumed she would one day need to leave Mississippi to get ahead in her career in the film industry.

But the 24-year-old camera assistant from Jackson is starting to think she can have it all: the career she loves in the state she loves.

Kinder, a Jackson native going on four years in the film industry, has never had another year in which so many of her gigs were booked in her own backyard. She’s recently had to turn down local jobs because she’s already busy with something else filming in the state.

Lights, cameras… Jackson? Mississippi’s production boom fosters a budding film workforce

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Thu, 08/19/2021 - 02:12 PM

Katrina Kinder assumed she would one day need to leave Mississippi to get ahead in her career in the film industry.

But the 24-year-old camera assistant from Jackson is starting to think she can have it all: the career she loves in the state she loves.

Kaylen Wade, 8, uses a laptop and tablet to participate in class via Zoom while at the Mississippi Children’s Museum. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Schools now allowed to implement hybrid schedules due to rising COVID-19 infections in children

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Thu, 08/19/2021 - 01:24 PM

Schools are now allowed to implement hybrid schedules — or a combination of virtual learning and in-person school days — after the State Board of Education approved a temporary policy revision on Thursday.

The board voted unanimously to allow school districts to utilize this schedule until Oct. 31 of this year. The Mississippi Department of Education cited the increased number of COVID-19 cases among school-aged children as the reason for bringing the policy to the board.

MDE Announces New Members of the Mississippi Teacher Advisory Council

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Wed, 08/18/2021 - 03:36 PM

Below is a press release from the Mississippi Department of Education:

The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) announced today the addition of 49 experienced and highly regarded professionals from across the state to serve on the Mississippi Teacher Advisory Council (MTAC). The MTAC, formed in 2016, now includes 300 educators representing schools in urban and rural settings and an array of content areas, including general education, arts, special education and career and technical education.

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, the chief executive of Mississippi’s largest medical center, delivered a tough-love message to Mississippians as the state’s hospital system is on its last breath. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

‘We are in trouble’: Dr. LouAnn Woodward delivers desperate plea to Mississippians as COVID crisis worsens

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Wed, 08/18/2021 - 02:06 PM

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, the chief executive of Mississippi’s largest medical center, is no longer mincing words about so many Mississippians’ unwillingness to protect their neighbors.

The chief executive of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, long the most outspoken state leader since the COVID-19 pandemic began, delivered a brutal, tough-love message to Mississippi on Tuesday as the state’s hospital system is on its last breath: Get vaccinated. Wear masks. Protect the future of the state. Do better.

Ken Spears sits in the driver seat of a bus as he waits for Neshoba County School District students to board on the first day of school on Wednesday, August 5, 2020. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

Smith County schools, which lost a student last week, to shut down due to COVID

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Wed, 08/18/2021 - 09:24 AM

Beginning Monday, all schools in Smith County School District will shut down for a two-week period due to high numbers of COVID-19 cases and quarantines, a school member said.

The decision by the school board Tuesday comes on the heels of the death of a Raleigh 8th grader over the weekend. Mkayla Robinson died just days after being diagnosed with COVID-19.

How much does your school’s superintendent make?

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Tue, 08/17/2021 - 04:00 PM

The median salary for Mississippi school district superintendents was $120,000 for the 2020-21 academic year, according to data the state Department of Education sent Mississippi Today.

Tupelo Public School District’s Robert Picou was the highest paid superintendent, making $219,000, followed by Jackson Public School District’s Errick Greene with $215,000.

Magee Book Club members are back. From left, Ginger Caughman, Charlene Jones, Donna McLean, Thelma Bontrager, Judy Griffith and Frances Meadows. It meets the 2nd Tuesday of each month from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. Anyone interested in joining the group should go by the library and see Miss Frances. September's featured read is The Moonlight School by Susan Woods Fisher.

Lights on again at Magee Library

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Tue, 08/17/2021 - 02:55 PM

When COVID basically shut down all Mississippi libraries for almost a year, the Magee Library became a dark, lonely place. Now the lights are on again.
The Central Mississippi Regional Library System fully reopened all its libraries in June of this year. Several began offering in-person programs immediately such as Story Time and Book Club, including the Magee Library. It was like taking a breath of fresh air for Branch Manager Frances Meadows, but she said, “It was a scary time when we opened back up; hardly anyone came in the building. I never felt that desolate.”

Shellie Gulley, left, and daughter Kadijah Landrum, right, from Tuscaloosa, AL spent six weeks in Magee training at 3 Girls Trucking Academy before returning home. Gulley commented, "Magee people are the best; such nice, loving people." Landrum agreed.

Mother-daughter truckers hit the road

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Tue, 08/17/2021 - 02:50 PM

Mothers and daughters often prove to be the best of friends. Shellie Gulley and Kadijah Landrum put that relationship to the test and have come out ahead.
The two ladies recently graduated from 3 Girls Trucking Academy in Magee, having completed the course they began together June 28, 2021, living and working together 24/7. Prior to enrolling they worked together in the quality inspection division for five years at the Mercedes Benz Plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala. In the latter part of 2020 they both realized they were ready for a change from that environment.

At least 32 states have resumed the use of Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot COVID-19 vaccine, but Mississippi is not one of them.

Fact-check: Mississippi universities say they can’t require the COVID vaccine. IHL says they can.

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Tue, 08/17/2021 - 01:00 PM

Halfway down Mississippi State University’s COVID-19 “Vaccine FAQ” page is the question, “are students going to be required to be vaccinated?”

MSU’s answer, in short, is no: While it encourages students to get vaccinated for COVID-19, the university says that it can’t require the shot without action from the Institutions of Higher Learning, the governing body for Mississippi’s public universities.

Math I teacher Samuel Wilson chats with two of his students on the first day of school, Monday, August 9, 2021. The Cleveland School District requires staff and students to wear masks.

‘Still at the beginning of a very long road’: Teachers express concern over COVID in schools

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Tue, 08/17/2021 - 10:00 AM

As the new school year begins and the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic rips through Mississippi, many teachers are concerned about how schools are handling the pandemic and feel the need for comprehensive mandates at the state level.

“I am just kind of confused about the whole situation (compared to last year),” said Max Vanlandingham, a teacher at Northwest Rankin High School. “More people are coming back positive, and we’re taking fewer precautions.”

Veteran activists championing HBCU funding are ready to pass the torch

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Tue, 08/17/2021 - 09:48 AM

Last Saturday morning, Alvin Chambliss waited on an empty sidewalk in front of the Masonic Lodge on J.R. Lynch Street. It was quarter past nine, and the march he had spent a month organizing was supposed to have started fifteen minutes ago. But aside from Chambliss and his co-organizer, former Mississippi state lawmaker Kathy Sykes, only one person had shown up. Chambliss was starting to get impatient.

“Fired up, ready to go,” he said into a megaphone to no one in particular.

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