From scoldings that school board members issued to the district's administrators to a concerned parent whose pleas for increased security on the district's campuses were silenced by the school board president's gavel, an uneasy air hung heavily in the room during the more than two-hour meeting Tuesday of the Yazoo County School Board.
Cooper Dixon of the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) spoke to the trustees about gun security on the campuses and the available resources from the MDE.
Michelle Nash, the mother of a Yazoo County High School student, voiced her concerns about security measures taken at each of the school district's three campuses.
“If you have a security guard in place, … as a parent, I want to know if there is a shooter or something that comes in, what abilities does a security guard have to defuse the situation,” Nash asked. “What ammunition does he have?”
“Nothing,” Dixon replied.
“So, basically, if we (the trustees) don't (have a plan), you (the trustees) are allowing our children to be sitting ducks,” she responded.
After an unidentified individual told her that the security guards do 3not carry guns, Nash said, “Well, who's going to stop (the shooter)? If you don't have somebody here to protect our children …. If we want to admit it our not, (active shooters) are a reality. That's the society we live in, and if we're not prepared to be ready, do you want to look at me as a parent and explain to me that there's no money in the budget for (armed security) and my child is lying dead somewhere because there was nothing to defuse the situation, there was no plan activated?
“Can you sit there and look me in my eyes and say, 'We chose not to make this decision and your child is now dead'?”
In answer to Nash's concerns, Dixon said there is no failsafe way to totally secure any entity, but a school district can prepare itself by being proactive instead of being reactive.
“That's my question: What's the proactive plan?” she responded as school board president Greg Moseley pounded the gavel, ending the discussion.
The trustees took no action on the matter.
Following security discussions, administrators were chastised for allegedly providing inaccurate information to the trustees after it was discovered that an error had been made in the listing of employees inputting information into the student data collection system.
“Why is (this information) not corrected before sending it out,” asked Moseley. “Y'all send stuff out to be approved that's not correct.”
He charged the administrators to not “just copy and send us stuff that's not correct. If it ain't correct, we don't want it.”
In other school board business, the trustees:
• Took issue with the reporting of activity funds from the various schools. The trustees took no action on the activity funds report.
• Heard Business Manager Lisa Worthy report that the fund balance was at $1.941 million as of the end of July. By the end of the fiscal year, the projected fund balance will be $3.275 million.
• Granted permission to advertise bids for agricultural leases expiring Dec. 31, 2016.
• Approved the release of a student to attend the Jackson Public Schools where the parent is employed.
• Accepted the donation of $100 from Phellis and Charles Cobb for the physical education department in memory of Kyle Wallace.
• Accepted $430 from Box Tops for Education, which will be used by the music department at Bentonia-Gibbs Elementary School.
