Jackson-Madison County superintendent highlights district strengths, challenges at Rotary
Focusing on fiscal strengths, success and challenges of the Jackson-Madison County School System Superintendent Marlon King spoke to Jackson Rotarians last week.
In his fourth year as superintendent, King urged last Wednesday attendees to understand that it is not his school system so much as it is the community's.
Made up of 12 elementary schools, five middle schools, and six high schools, King represents a JMCSS population of more than 13,000 students.
More: 'It's unifying our community': Hub City Central stadium breaks ground
More: Jackson-Madison County school board passes anti-voucher resolution, central office move
More: 'I'm against this': Jackson-Madison board members discuss Gov. Lee's voucher proposal
Fiscal strengths
JMCSS has come under budget for the last two years, each by about $4.6 million, King said.
In addition to conservative spending, King commended the district's ability to grow its rainy-day fund balance. In the 2021-2022 fiscal year, fund balances totaled $20.8 million. It grew to $26.2 million in the most recent 2022-2023 year.
A point of accomplishment for the district was increasing its minimum starting teacher salary from $37,000 in 2020 to $46,000 in 2024. This is up more than $4,000 from the previous year.
King says this is in a direct effort to simultaneously increase teacher retention rates.
Retention rates for JMCSS teachers were on a steady incline beginning at 81.8% in 2020 before peaking at 93.6% during 2021-2022. It dropped to 88.7% in 2023-2024 but remains in line with average state retention rates.
Challenges
Chronic absenteeism characterizes a student who has missed 10% or more school days and remains a hurdle the school system struggles to combat.
The current JMCSS policy allows a student 10 unexcused absences before truancy court becomes involved.
In 2021, the district had 25.8% of its student population designated as chronic absentees before jumping to 29.8% in 2022-2023. Slight improvements reflect 29.4% in the 2023-2024 school year.
Navigating student homelessness continues to be another challenge for JMCSS and annual district reports show that 296 students in the community are experiencing homelessness.
Concerted efforts being made include the implementation of a van shuttle service from hotels to schools, afterschool tutoring at the Salvation Army, the provision of emergency housing, and maintaining washers and dryers with laundry supplies at 16 schools.
Successes
The current school year saw an uptick of more than 219 students from 2022-2023, reflecting the highest enrollment numbers in the last three years.
Schools saw the expansion of both robotics programs and STEM-designated schools.
Currently, JMCSS has three major capital project underway, the most recent being the Hub City Central Stadium, which broke ground in November.
Under the ownership of JMCSS, the stadium falls under the umbrella of the district's "CommUNITY Project" initiative and was purchased from the City of Jackson for $1.
The construction of Pope Elementary and the renovation of Malesus Innovation STEM Center are the other two components of the initiative.
Sarah Best is a reporter for The Jackson Sun. To support local journalism, subscribe to the Daily Briefing here.
This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: Jackson-Madison superintendent discusses strengths, challenges
