Around the state, approximately 90 school boards are elected, approximately 20 are appointed and approximately 31 are made up of both appointed and elected members.

Pete Smith, senior policy adviser for the Mississippi Department of Education Office of Communication and Legislation, said it is the official position of MDE that school boards be elected and superintendents be appointed.

Smith said multiple bills have been filed over the past few years in the Legislature to make school boards elected.

“Each year, the bill has failed,” Smith said. “But the position (MDE) takes is that having an elected school board gives that board greater flexibility in going outside the box, if you will, to find talent to lead the school district.”

An elected school board also encourages more accountability to taxpayers, Smith said.

“If you have an elected school board, you also have more representation from the districts or the areas where the members are coming from,” Smith said.

Michael Waldrop, director for the Mississippi School Boards Association, said the association polls its membership about positions on whether a school board should be elected or appointed.

The latest poll, Waldrop said, indicated the association’s members believe the districts that are elected should stay elected and those appointed should stay appointed.

“We also believe in local control, so we have no issue with a board going from elected to appointed or appointed to elected if that is the what the local people want,” he said.

Waldrop said he understands the arguments for both an elected and appointed board.

While elected boards offer a more democratic way to select members, residents such as highly educated doctors, lawyers or other professionals who could be good education leaders often will not run for political office.

Regardless of appointed or elected school board members, Waldrop said any board’s effectiveness depends on the members who serve.

“The most important thing is that they keep the children first in all their decisions,” he said.

Ward 1 Alderwoman Joyce Arceneaux-Mathis, a retired NASD educator, has been vocal about her support for an elected school board. Arceneaux-Mathis made the motion to pass the city’s resolution in support of an elected board.

Although the city and county boards appoint school board members, Arceneaux-Mathis said she does not feel the school board answers to the county or the city.

“I believe if the board is elected, they would be more responsive to the citizens and be more open, and people would feel they have more access to the school system,” she said.

Supervisors President Darryl Grennell said the board of supervisors has passed a resolution in support of an elected school board for many years.

Grennell said his main reason for supporting an elected school board is that the current appointed board has the power to affect taxes.

The school board presents a budget to supervisors every year, and the supervisors have traditionally approved the school district’s funding requests.

Regardless of the decision made about changing the school board to elected, Nichols said the community is at a crossroads for its public education system.

“It’s going to be really crucial which way we turn,” she said.