Amite and Wilkinson county school districts avoided the specter of consolidation — at least for now — following a revised bill the Senate Education Committee approved Tuesday.
Committee chairman Grey Tollison, R-Oxford, did not include a proposal to merge the two school districts in Senate Bill 132.
The bill still plans to merge three other pairs of school districts — Greenwood and Leflore County, Winona and Montgomery County, and Claiborne and Jefferson counties — in July 2015.
Proposals to merge two other pairs of districts — Holmes County and Durant, and Kemper and Noxubee counties — also were scrapped, Tollison said, citing a lack of time.
That’s fine by Amite County School District Superintendent Scotty Whittington, who opposed the local consolidation.
“We’ll take any good news today,” Whittington said Tuesday after hearing of the decision. “I think if they study (the proposal) in detail, it’s not the way to go.”
Whittington said school officials would be spread thin if Amite’s and Wilkinson’s school districts were merged.
“You’d have one superintendent in two separate counties and one board,” Whittington said. “(The board) wouldn’t be able to concentrate on one effort. That is just going to dilute everything.”
Whittington said he had a suspicion the two counties would somehow get a reprieve.
“I really didn’t think they were going to pass (the bill) anyway,” Whittington said. “They really don’t have reasons to pass this law. I guess I should be happy that this was quashed.”
The Senate Education Committee came up with the idea to merge districts to make schools more streamlined. The committee’s desire was to improve students’ academic standing and cut excess fat in personnel costs.
Tollison has said he was following recommendations of a report spearheaded by former Gov. Haley Barbour that said schools would benefit from consolidation. Tollison has filed eight bills in the past four years in an effort to merge school districts.
Like Whittington, Wilkinson County School District Superintendent Timothy Scott is against merging the districts. Both cited a simmering rivalry between the districts.
Whittington said he and Scott discussed the situation during last week’s Mississippi Association of School Superintendents meeting in Natchez.
“We talked about this idea. Neither of us believed it was the right way of doing anything,” Whittington said. “We’re going to try and lobby against it.”
Amite County has approximately 1,200 students on three campuses, which include the high school, elementary school and Vo-Tech. Wilkinson County has about 1,400 students on four campuses. Finch and Wilkinson County are the two elementary schools. There also is William Winans Middle School and Wilkinson County High School.
The House also is considering a separate bill that would consolidate Clarksdale and Coahoma County school districts.
