The Mississippi Legislature will reconvene at 1 p.m. on Monday, August 10, to address issues related to COVID-19.
We are hopeful that, while they are in session, the Legislature will resolve the school budget crisis created when Gov. Reeves vetoed the public school funding in HB 1700.
As we reported earlier, Gov. Reeves vetoed the portions of the school funding bill that provide for public school teacher salaries, classroom supplies, special education, and other important programs but left intact funding for the Mississippi Department of Education and vouchers for private school tuition. Local school districts need for legislators to address this issue quickly so that they can be notified of their funding allocations and finalize their budgets, and so that classroom supply procurement cards can be distributed to teachers.
Yesterday, the State Board of Education voted to waive up to 10 days of the 180-day calendar requirement for the 2020-2021 school year only for school districts that have delayed their established and published start dates. The waiver, which is optional for school districts, applies to districts in the eight counties ordered to delay reopening in Executive Order 1517 and to those that made a local decision to postpone the start of school. School districts that have honored their original established start dates are not eligible for the waiver. Read more.
We will update you as we learn more about the Legislature’s plans for Monday. Please watch for more news. Together, we’ve got this!
