Last week, the House Select Committee on Consolidation met to hear from superintendents who led school districts through mergers. Former superintendents Dr. Teresa Jackson and Mr. John Ellison provided insight on the legislatively-mandated consolidations that formed what are now the Winona-Montgomery Consolidated School District (merged Winona Municipal Separate School District and Montgomery County School District) and the Chickasaw County Consolidated School District (merged Houston Separate School District and Chickasaw County School District).
Mr. Will Russell, current superintendent of the Leake County School District, described the challenges associated with voluntary intradistrict consolidations (combining schools) and the difficulties of school closures, a process he also undertook when he served as superintendent in the Jefferson Davis County School District.
Among the insights shared were:
- Consolidation of two or more school districts and mergers of schools within districts are extremely difficult; communities often are opposed to the forced changes, and a successful consolidation requires especially strong and diplomatic leadership at the district level to ensure fair and consistent standards, services, facilities, and opportunities on every campus
- Districts should be given advance notice, with at least a year to plan for a legislatively-mandated consolidation
- Assistance provided by the Mississippi Department of Education in navigating the consolidation process was essential and extremely helpful
- When districts with different accountability ratings consolidate, the merged district should be held harmless from accountability ratings for a year or more to allow leaders to focus on the time-consuming tasks and challenges associated with consolidation
- Taxation was a big issue; the residents of one district had their taxes raised considerably to equalize the local tax support across the combined districts
- Bills mandating consolidation should be focused on giving equal opportunity to all students, and the legislation should be carefully drafted to avoid unintended consequences; one such bill provided that a named district must be abolished, terminating all teacher contracts; those teachers had to apply for any openings available in the newly formed district while teachers in the other district being merged kept their jobs
- Some cost savings were eventually realized at the district level, but initially costs increased due to factors such as:
- the need for additional support staff to assist struggling students
- aligning student handbooks, employee manuals, board policies, curriculum, calendars, lesson plans, etc., across the district
- protracted litigation (defending the district in multiple lawsuits filed by those opposed to the consolidation)
- increased transportation costs (in one case, due to a school closure, a school bus and driver were assigned to a single student to avoid having that student on a school bus for 2 hours each way; one district had to purchase additional buses; additional transportation support was required to ensure equitable access to extracurricular activities and athletics)
- changing uniforms, mascots, logos, and school colors, an expensive undertaking but key to building school camaraderie and support
- significant infrastructure upgrades required to ensure equitable resources and access to technology and sufficient classroom capacity for all students
- changing the district name on all materials and accounts, contracts, etc.
- Cost savings would not have been achieved without closure of school buildings
- Had the consolidation yielded districts that were larger than the 1,200 to 2,200 or so students in these combined districts, additional district-level administrators would have been required to manage the consolidation and the larger district
- Students ultimately benefited from the blended resources of the merged districts or schools; examples given included the availability of additional advanced courses and broader access to extracurricular activities (art, music, sports, etc.)
All three superintendents stressed that aging facilities are a significant issue and urged the Legislature to consider appropriating funds specifically for facilities improvements in districts that undergo consolidation. The legislatively-mandated merger of the Starkville and Oktibbeha County school districts in 2015 was made vastly more appealing by a legislative appropriation to assist in the construction of a new district middle school on the campus of Mississippi State University. In the 2026 Legislative Session, an additional $8-million was appropriated for the building of a new high school in the Starkville-Oktibbeha School District. To our knowledge, the Mississippi Legislature has provided no similar funding for facilities construction in other consolidated districts.
We will keep you posted on further meetings of this committee and any opportunities for public comment or input. Together, we’ve got this!
