JMCSS School Board meets with state legislators

JACKSON, Tenn. — School district leaders met with members of the state legislature Friday to discuss educational concerns, one being the resolution recently passed by the Jackson-Madison County School Board concerning vouchers.

Vouchers are publicly funded scholarships for students to attend private schools, and the board recently passed a resolution saying they were not offering vouchers.

“The vouchers ain’t the way to go about it,” Rep. Jimmy Eldridge said. “You know, I believe in school choice and I believe, like you said, in Madison County, our system here already had school choice in so many different ways.”

Another topic discussed was a Vision 2020 update. Sen. Ed Jackson asked how things were going.

“It’s going in the direction that it should, and it shouldn’t stop just because of funding, and funding has been a huge detriment at this point,” Superintendent Dr. Verna Ruffin said.

School board leaders say they are in need of an extra $160 million for their capital fund to improve schools. However, Chairman Bob Alvey said that money is going to have to come from the county, not necessarily from the state.

“And you as a school board, the folks in Madison County are going to have to trust you, ‘look, here is why we are doing this. We are not doing this because we are picking on folk,'” Rep. Johnny Shaw said while encouraging the board.

Other issues discussed in the meeting were lowering the number of mandatory fire drills, the gas tax, and the BEP.