ROD GUAJARDO
Thousands of students across Mississippi, including many in our region, will be without after-school programs because of a state-level error that caused funding to be reduced to districts across the state.
The Mississippi Department of Education said Friday that because employees mishandled grant money, the state will only be able to spend $5.6 million of the state’s $14.6 million allotment of a federal grant for after-school programs, according to a report by the Associated Press.
The other $9 million will go to reimburse school districts and nonprofit groups for costs they incurred earlier, after employees awarded too many grants.
That means that instead of a program that was projected to reach 29,000 students in 67 school districts, it will only reach 7,000 students in 28 school districts.
In Northeast Mississippi, the following districts have schools that will be impacted by the after-school funding cuts: Aberdeen School District, Baldwyn School District, Corinth Public Schools, Okolona Municipal Separate School District, South Tippah School District, Starkville School District.
Corinth, South Tippah and Okolona districts each have two separate grants. Both grants have been discontinued for South Tippah and Okolona. Corinth will keep one grant, while the grant that served West Kemper Elementary, Corinth Middle, East Kemper Attendance Center and Corinth Elementary will be discontinued.
After consulting with the U.S. Department of Education, Mississippi officials decided to use the reduced amount of money to meet commitments to programs in the fourth and fifth years of their five-year grants. Programs in the second and third years of their grants, where the federal money covered a larger share of operations, will get no money.
State Superintendent Carey Wright said the decrease would pose problems for parents who were counting on the programs and that students who had been enrolled in programs with strong academic content could suffer.
Wright said Mississippi is still trying to figure out how to repay $7.6 million that was improperly spent on the program from federal Title I aid for poor children. Three employees were fired after improperly dipping into that account to make up for overspending from the separate after-school money account.
“It’s unfortunate that this has occurred,” Wright told the AP. “But the part to me we have to keep our eyes on is the school day is when the majority of work gets done.”
With all due respect to Wright, that is likely the last thing any parent wants to hear right now.
Her statement is disrespectful to any parent with a child in one of these programs who will now be majorly inconvenienced because of an error within her department.
While a strong focus should be kept on curriculum and other matters that take up the majority of the school day, the bottom line is that those priorities and after-school programs could have both been achieved without the mishandling of funds at MDE.
Passing the buck on this matter does little for the thousands of students who are left without after-school programs to attend in their communities.
Thankfully, state leaders say the funding will rebound after this year and that applications for new programs will be taken next year.
Let’s just hope one year without funding doesn’t collapse worthwhile programs in our communities and that other programs with more resources are able to step up in the interim to make sure no students fall through the cracks.
But at the end of the day, an error of this magnitude shouldn’t be swept under the rug.
State leaders need to take the appropriate steps now to make sure children across Mississippi aren’t put in this type of situation ever again.
Rod Guajardo is editor of the Daily Journal. Connect with him through Twitter: @rodgjournal, by email: rod.guajardo@journalinc.com or by phone: (662) 678-1579.