It has been an interesting few weeks for the McComb School District.
It started Sept. 23 with a brawl at the high school that illustrated what police are dealing with in trying to prevent teenagers from acting on violent impulses.
The timing of the brawl was lousy, because it prompted South Pike to move its football game against McComb that week to an afternoon kickoff. South Pike did not allow fans to attend, a decision that had to cost the Eagles thousands of dollars.
Last week was McComb’s homecoming, and the new superintendent, Dr. Tiffany Hicks, has been criticized for her decision to cancel the annual pregame tailgater outside the stadium.
A number of people showed up for the school board work session on Monday, Oct. 7. One of them, given three minutes to speak to the board, said the tailgater cancellation made it look like everyone was being punished for the misbehavior of a few high school kids.
When the speaker finished, there was the most uncomfortable silence in the room. There were about 12 school officials at the board’s table, and no one responded for about 10 or 15 seconds. That is an eternity when you’re waiting for somebody to speak.
Finally, the board chairman, Angela Bates, said something like, thank you, we hear you and we will be in touch.
It probably was best not to respond, because that might have led to harsher words between the board members and the people who were upset about the tailgater.
Still, the objection to the cancellation deserves an answer. Here’s mine: I think the superintendent made the right decision. I don’t believe she wanted to dump over the community punch bowl in her first few months on the job, so there has to be a reason for the decision.
She said at the work session that law enforcement advised her to call it off. Which may mean that the kiddies who started the fight at the high school are looking for Round 2. Can anyone offer a legitimate argument that the district should have taken that chance? Can you imagine the negative publicity if something violent had occurred?
A My Two Cents entry in last Thursday’s paper that supported the cancellation said that since a brawl has affected an event for adults, maybe now more adults will do something to prevent future fights. I agree with that.
But there is something else going on that, over time, could make the brawl and the tailgater cancellation look like small occurrences.
The Mississippi Department of Education has had one of its officers at school board meetings for the past three months. They can only be making these visits because they suspect something has been done improperly.
If you put some thought to the situation, it looks like the state has questions about the school board itself.
If there was a problem at an individual school, the department would certainly send people to that school to start digging. But as far as I know, that’s not happening.
Also, Dr. Jo Ann Malone, who has been at the school board meetings since August, is the executive secretary of the Commission on School Accreditation. This is the group that certifies that school districts are in compliance with all the state and federal education guidelines.
Put some more thought to it, and what does that say? The only thing I can come up with is that somehow a situation has developed where accreditation guidelines are being violated. Or have been violated in the recent past.
This is truly mystifying. I have covered the school board for eight years. The Daniels administration building has a lot of experienced, capable people working there.
There must be hundreds or even thousands of state and federal rules for education, from finances to teaching. Still, it doesn’t make sense that the administrative staff is suddenly making a mess.
It is true that there are several new faces in the building. Hicks is just one. But she came to work at McComb in July, and the Department of Education arrived in August. So whatever’s gone wrong had to happen before she got there.
It’s hard for me to believe that any school leaders, even board members whose decisions I have disagreed with, would willfully put accreditation at risk. Hopefully we’ll know something soon.
