We have approached the home stretch in CHART advocacy.  Our primary goal has been to get 75% of our Priority 1 districts (25 of 33 districts) to adopt CHART.   As of this moment, we are only 9 districts short of reaching that goal.

[Fun Fact: This post was originally going to be called "Ten to Win", but another district announced as I began to type. Good problem to have, right?]

Below is a list of the Priority 1 districts that either (a) haven’t adopted a policy yet, (b) adopted their own abstinence-plus policy and are being asked to replace it with the CHART policy, or (c) adopted an abstinence-only policy and are being asked to reconsider their policy position.

Remaining Priority 1 Districts (Counties in Parenthesis where necessary):

• Benoit School District (Bolivar) – adopted abstinence-only
• Coahoma Agricultural High School  - adopted abstinence-plus
• George County School District
• Holmes County School District
• Greenwood School District (Leflore)  - adopted abstinence-plus
• South Panola School District
• Scott County School District
• Forest Municipal School District (Scott) – adopted abstinence-plus
• Sunflower County School District
• East Tallahatchie School District
• Hollandale School District (Washington)
• Coffeeville School District (Yalobusha)
• Water Valley School District (Yalobusha)
• Yazoo City School District – adopted abstinence-plus
• Yazoo County School District

Again, we only need 9 of these 14 districts to adopt the policy in order to reach our goal.  If you’re interested in taking part in our advocacy efforts in any of these districts, please e-mail me at sanford@mississippifirst.org.

A great deal of activity has taken place on the charter school issue here in the Magnolia State.  Below is a brief rundown of what’s been going on:

Legislation
HB888, the House version of the “Mississippi Public Charter School Act of 2012,” is officially dead.  HB888’s demise was largely driven by the legislative calendar. Basically, the House had a nearly 100 bills to vote on before last week’s deadline for sending their approved bills to the Senate.  As the deadline approached, the newly-elected House leadership decided to prioritize certain bills, based both on their legislative priorities and the existence of companion legislation in the Senate. Since the Senate had already passed their version of the charter school act (SB 2401) and the leadership knew that the charter bill would take up an inordinate amount of time on the floor, the House decided to let HB888 die.

So now the House will take up SB 2401, and they’ll likely do one of three options:

• Pass the Senate bill as is, and send it straight to Gov. Bryant
• Make a few amendments to the bill, pass it, and send it to the Senate to either concur or take to a conference committee (members from both chambers iron out differences to craft one final charter bill); or
• Replace Senate bill language with the language from HB 888 (“Strike All”), then pass it and send it to conference.

The House must take action on the Senate charter bill by April 3rd.

MSF Resources
There are two features on MississippiFirst.org designed to provide a wealth of information about charter school policy. First, we’ve made several changes to our Charter Schools Resource Page. Along with info about the pending legislation (including a new summary of HB 2401), we’ve also added several new charter school studies and articles. We will continue to add new information over the coming weeks.

We’ve also added a new page called Common Concerns About Charter Schools, which is designed to address the concerns that have often been raised in recent years about charter schools. We will continue to add concerns as the current legislation works its way through the Legislature. You can help us determine which which new concerns we’ll address. All you have to do is post your questions/concerns on our MSF Facebook page.

More information is coming soon!

This past Tuesday (3/20), I presented the CHART abstinence-plus policy to the Indianola School Board.  The Indianola School District is one of three districts in Sunflower County, which we’ve identified as Priority 1.

During the Q/A session with the board members, it was clear that there were strong support for abstinence-plus within the district.  Most of the questions were focused on “the cost” to the district and clarification about when sex education would need to be taught.  While I stated that Priority 1 districts would receive guaranteed funding for CHART, the district conservator mentioned that there would be “cost” in terms of the time investment.  It was also pointed out that all districts would have to invest time, regardless of what policy they chose to adopt.  As for the grades, I stated that CHART districts must start no later than the 7th grade, and that MSDH wants districts to fully implement the federally-funded curricula (ex. A district can’t choose to teach one grade of a 6-8th grade middle school curriculum).

The district may be looking into doing a parent survey before they adopt a policy, though it’s very likely that the results would be similar to those published by the Center for Mississippi Health Policy this past December.  We’re hoping that the board will make a final decision during their April meeting.

When Bolivar County was added to our Priority 1 list, I began preparing myself for the challenge of creating an advocacy strategy that would cover each of the county’s six public school districts.  The task ended up being much easier than I expected.  Each month, the superintendents meet in order to discuss common issues and share ideas.  I was able to attend this meeting this morning at the Cleveland School District central office (the superintendents take turns hosting) to talk about the CHART policy.  The following superintendents were present at the meeting.

Dr. Jacqueline Thigpen, Cleveland School District

Mr. William Crockett, Mound Bayou School District

Rev. Jessie King, North Bolivar School District (Shelby, MS) – CHART has already been presented to the NBSD Board

Mr. Henry Phillips, West Bolivar School District (Rosedale, MS)

I was able to share teen health data for the county, including the fact that teen births cost Bolivar County taxpayers almost $2.5 million dollars in 2009.  Most of the questions focused on teacher training and the curriculum options.  I informed them that teacher training would be provided at no cost by the Mississippi State Department of Health for each of the CHART districts.  The curriculum questions were more difficult to answer, since we’re still waiting for MDE to release the list of approved curricula from the most recent round of reviews.  Nevertheless, the superintendents were very supportive of the policy, and the CHART policy will be introduced at each of their school board meetings next month.

More updates will be coming soon. If you’re interested in taking part in CHART advocacy, please e-mail me at sanford@mississippifirst.org.

I presented the CHART policy to the North Bolivar School Board yesterday (2/21) during their monthly meeting, which took place at the district’s central office in Shelby, MS.  This was the first presentation done in Bolivar County, one of our newly identified Priority 1 counties.  The district held a community meeting to discuss the new sex education requirement, and there was overwhelming support for the abstinence-plus option.  Superintendent Jesse King expressed strong support for the CHART policy, along with the members of the board.

This presentation counts as the school board’s first reading of the policy.  They will officially vote on it during their March board meeting.

This past month, some significant changes were made to our CHART advocacy strategy.  As you know, the CHART initiative has been created in partnership with the Mississippi State Department of Health, which is administering the PREP grant that’s funding this initiative.

The changes are based on an updated data set we’re using to identify our Priority 1 status.  Up to this point, we’ve used five indicators for determine our advocacy priorities, based on the teen birth rate for 15-19 year old females, and the Chlamydia and gonorrhea infection rates for the total population in each county.  However, in order to reflect the target audience of the CHART initiative, we’ve decided to use a specific data set that would reflect the teen birth rate for 10-19-year-olds, and the Chlamydia and gonorrhea infection rates for 12-19-year-olds.

While the use of this new data set had virtually no effect on counties with enormously high rates, some counties on the edge of certain statuses moved up or slipped down in the ratings.  Below are the changes…

Counties Moving Up
(Up To P1) Bolivar and Yalobusha; (Up To P2) Leake

Counties Moving Down
(Down To P2) Chickasaw, Marion, Neshoba, Sharkey; (Down to P3) Calhoun, Simpson, Tippah, and Wayne

Under our partnership with MSDH, only Priority 1 districts are guaranteed full funding to implement CHART.  Priority 2 and 3 counties can receive full-funding on a first come, first served basis.  Districts that dropped from P1 status can still receive funding, but now it’s imperative that they adopt the policy as quickly as possible.

Visit our CHART Advocacy page to view the changes in our advocacy priorities.  For more information, contact Deputy Director Sanford Johnson at sanford@mississippifirst.org.

Yesterday, I presented the CHART policy to the Greenville Public School District. This is my third presentation in Washington County, a P1 county which has the highest gonorrhea infection rate in the entire state. Two other districts in the county (Western Line and Leland) have already adopted the policy.

As with most P1 counties, the health data caused some jaws to drop. It’s certain that many folks were aware of the teen pregnancy and STD problems in Washington County, but only after seeing the data does the extent of the problem set in.

The Greenville School Board was close to adopting CHART through an “emergency policy adoption”. But since we’re months away from the deadline, and the board members wanted time to carefully read the policy and answer follow-up questions, the board decided to follow their normal procedures. This will count as a first reading of the policy, with a vote taking place during the February meeting.

More to come…

During one hour on Tuesday, I was able to complete two presentations for the CHART policy. The first of these presentations was for Durant School Board (Holmes, P1), and it took place at their central office. After a brief description of the policy, I answered questions on the following topics:

Possibility of implementing a middle school curriculum only…
While the CHART policy only requires districts to start sex education by 7th grade, I strongly encouraged the board to consider implementing curricula for 7-12 grade. It wouldn’t make much sense to teach evidence-based sex ed in middle school and leave high schoolers out, especially when 76% of Mississippi 12th graders have had sex at least once.

Student sex ed requirement…
Although districts are required to teach sex education, students aren’t required to take it. I also pointed out that with the state-mandated “opt in” policy in place, students would need written permission to take part in sex ed classes.

Compliance issues…
Districts that adopt the CHART policy will receive an implementation guide, as well as a copy of the curriculum guide. The implementation guide will give districts tips on how to implement the sex ed requirement in the most effective way.

The superintendent in Durant is expected to retire this coming spring. In earlier conversations, there appeared to be some hesitation about the Board adopting a policy before the transition takes place. That said, there appeared to be some support for CHART among the board members. We’ll see what happend.

CALLING COLUMBUS

The presentation for the Columbus School District (Lowndes, P3) actually took place via-cell phone from the Fred’s Dollar Store parking lot in Durant. The district has put together a committee of teachers, administrators, and parents to review the sex ed policy options and make a recommendation to the school board. I spoke to the board while the school nurse advanced the slides of my presentation.

As usual, I started with the county teen birth and STD data. Although the rates in Lowndes County aren’t as jaw-dropping as the ones in several other counties, being so close to the state rates was enough to get a reaction from the audience. The biggest concern for the committee was the uncertainty around the curricula. As with other districts, members of this committee wanted to see what would be taught in these recommended programs. We’re working to provide additional information for our recommended curricula on our website, which would include lesson titles and objectives.

UPDATE: The committee voted to recommend the CHART abstinence-plus policy for school board approval.

Before a packed house at the Hollandale School District Office, I spoke to board members about the CHART Abstinence-Plus policy. This was the first board presentation in Washington County, which is one of our Priority 1 counties.

The presentation was quick and went something like this: teen birth and STD rates in Washington County are alarmingly high, the district is now legally required to provide sex ed, abstinence-plus is far more effective than abstinence-only programs, and CHART is free. The words “needed”, “required”, “effective” and “free” are mainstays in CHART presentations.

Board members plan to review as many sex ed policy options as possible between now and the January board meeting. It’s possible that they will decide on a policy at that board meeting. In the coming weeks, we will continue to reach out to district administrators and board members to build support for the policy.

In the next 48 hours, I will also present CHART to the Durant (Holmes, P1), Jackson (Hinds, P2), and Leland (Washington, P1) school districts.

Stay tuned…