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The House on Thursday passed a measure to overhaul the state’s youth court system after the Senate had passed it late Wednesday night in a special session of the Mississippi Legislature.

But when it looked like lawmakers were soon to wrap up what would have been a relatively quick special session on Thursday afternoon, the efforts hit a snag over a separate issue over which lawmakers have argued for years — reform of pharmacy benefit manager laws.

The behind the scenes haggling over PBMs kept the special session going hours longer than expected, into Thursday night.

Lawmakers into Thursday night were in limbo, unsure whether they would be ending their session soon and going home, or adding a new, contentious issue to the mix and remaining in Jackson. And it left the youth court reform, or at least its funding, also in limbo for a while.

READ MORE: Reeves: Special session will overhaul Mississippi’s ‘fragmented’ youth court system. Here’s how

Youth court funding held hostage in attempt to address pharmacy reform

Lawmakers appeared set to finalize a pair of funding measures for the youth court overhaul they had passed, but the funding bills stalled late Thursday afternoon amid a House-led effort to also address PBM reform in the special session. The youth court funding measures would approve $29.5 million in new spending.

House leaders held the youth court funding bills hostage for hours to use as leverage to try to force Senate leaders to agree on PBM legislation, and then get Gov. Tate Reeves to add a PBM overhaul to the current special session.

The House early Thursday afternoon passed the youth court spending bills, but then, in a surprise move, Republican Rep. Steve Massengill of Hickory Flat, a top ally of House Speaker Jason White, held the bills on a motion to reconsider, preventing the measures from going to the Senate for consideration.

House Speaker Jason White later said Thursday night the House would allow them to go to the Senate for consideration. But the reason, White said, the House held them on a procedural motion was because legislative leaders were “very close” on PBM reform. White also said he thought lawmakers had reached a deal on Wednesday night, and then three or four times on Thursday afternoon until negotiations stalled again.

White told Mississippi Today he and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have been talking about the prospect of an additional special session on PBMs “over the course of this week” and that Reeves was willing to call a special session if there was an agreement.

“While everybody is at the table, I thought this was a great opportunity, and they’re working hard. I was hoping to land that plane before we got out of Jackson,” White said. “I’m encouraged by parties on all sides over the last few days being willing to really get in a room and shut the door.”

White said lawmakers could be back in a special session “in a week or two, I don’t know,” to deal with PBMs, if they are not addressed now.

The House recessed, with plans to come back later Thursday night and see if an extended special session to deal with PBMs was possible. But the Senate, once the House finally released the youth court funding bills, passed the measures quickly and called an end to the special session.

Multiple senators also told Mississippi Today they had not seen an agreement and were skeptical of whether they could garner the necessary votes to pass PBM reform in a special session. Some said they believed the effort was more political face-saving for House members who had faced flak back home after they failed to pass a PBM reform measure earlier this year.

Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Biloxi, said the Senate was unlikely to approve any reforms to such a longstanding issue at the last minute.

“We tried for three years to get meaningful PBM reform passed,” DeLano said. “While we’ve been close several times, we did not get there. If our intention during this special session is to include PBM reform, it needs to be fully vetted and I question whether the Legislature would have that opportunity in such a tight window. This is an extremely important issue for many Mississippians, including our independent pharmacies, and not something that should be hastily passed without a full deliberate discussion.”

As lawmakers were scrambling to figure out where negotiations stood, the Senate drafted its own youth court funding bills on Thursday afternoon, a strategic move in response to the House holding the bills it had passed. It appeared the Senate might pass the spending bills on to the House and tell the other chamber to take it or leave it and potentially leave the special session.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, said he was “not sure what’s going on” in the House, so he wanted the Senate to pass mirror versions of the House spending bills as a backup.

“They passed those bills, I think, a few hours ago, three hours ago or so,” Hopson said of the House. They’re held on a motion to reconsider, so I think what we’d like to do is go ahead and get these Senate bills out of the Senate if we can and move those to the House for consideration.”

After years, ‘uniformity’ for youth court

Earlier in the day, in a 67-32 vote that fell mostly along party lines in the Republican-dominated chamber, the House approved the Senate youth court reform legislation without changing it. Democrats introduced several amendments, but all of them were defeated. Tempers flared in the debate’s closing stages, with one Democrat calling Republicans “cowards” for voting for the measure in a “rushed” process, and Republicans responding that the bill was the culmination of a long push toward reforming the system.

The Senate had passed the youth court bill late Wednesday night 25-10 after much debate, with several members absent or not voting.

“Don’t stand up here and say I don’t care about children in this piece of legislation, because I do,” said House Judiciary B Committee Chairman Kevin Horan, a Republican from Grenada and one of the lead House negotiators. “We have been dealing with this for years and years. We have got to get some uniformity in the system.”

Rep. Jeffery Harness, a Democrat from Fayette, said Republicans were voting to thrust the youth court system into “a chaotic mess.”

“Many of you haven’t even read this legislation; you voted just to vote. And you caused harm to your state and harm to your children,” Harness said. “And you sit here like cowards and can’t even represent your own interests.”

The goal of the overhaul is to replace Mississippi’s current disjointed youth court system. Only 24 of Mississippi’s 82 counties have a full-time judge handling youth court cases. In most of these instances, county court judges handle youth court matters. But not every county has a county court.

In the remaining counties, these matters are handled by “part-time referees,” who are a part of the chancery court. The proposal passed by the Senate would do away with referees and replace them with full-time chancery court judges. The governor will appoint the new chancery court judges, but they will later have to run for election.

Some House members in both parties said localities should have control over the appointments, not the governor, but efforts to tweak the bill in that manner were defeated.

The legislation would also allow for the appointment of another court official called a “family master” to hold emergency hearings, should chancery court judges face a backlog.

The legislation would add more full-time judges and open youth court proceedings to the public. It would also create a statewide “diversion program” to redirect some juveniles from the court system, expand detention capacity at the Oakley Youth Development Center in Raymond and lay the groundwork for the building of new detention centers in both North Mississippi and South Mississippi.

Youth court proceedings will be open to public

One of the most contentious provisions among Democrats is a requirement that an order or ruling of the youth court judge delivered orally must be reduced to writing within 48 hours. Failure to reduce the oral order to writing within that time period would nullify the order.

Democrats said the provision could result in children being sent back to dangerous settings if youth court judges don’t, for whatever reason, successfully put their orders into writing in the required time frame. Republicans said ensuring orders are available in writing is critical to a fair legal proceeding and that there were plenty of technological options available to judges.

Democrats also objected to the bill’s opening of youth court proceedings to the public, arguing that children who have been sexually abused would see the gruesome details of what happened to them exposed in public view. Republicans said judges would have the option to close hearings if they wanted to, and there were already other protections in state law to protect children from undue scrutiny.

“Due process dies in the darkness,” said House Judiciary A Vice Chairman Jansen Owen, a Republican from Poplarville.

For decades, closed youth courts have been the status quo, and only in rare circumstances has the public been allowed to see the proceedings. The new proposal will give judges flexibility on sealing records and limiting courtroom proceedings, but the courts will now be presumed open to the public.

Senate Judiciary A Chairman Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, told Mississippi Today that he understands concerns of the public sharing sensitive details about children and families, but he believes the new law will still protect the privacy of children.

“Open courts are a hallmark of our democracy,” Wiggins said. “If you’re for good government and transparency, you should be supportive of open courts.”

The special session was necessary because youth court proceedings were thrown into confusion after lawmakers, during their regular 2026 session, let state laws that outline how confidential youth court records can be shared between courts, state agencies, attorneys and law enforcement expire.

When a repealer, or sunset clause, is included in a state law, the law or a section goes away on a specified date unless the Legislature votes to reenact it. Because the Legislature didn’t pass a measure extending the repealer, those confidentiality measures and other youth court laws and funding expired.

Some Democrats questioned the hastily called nature of the special session. But existing youth court judges made clear the situation was unsustainable, Owen responded.

“When the statutes expired, it was like a bunch of judge chicken littles running around talking about how the sky was falling and how everything was going to hell in a handbasket,” Owen said.

Longtime Democratic Sen. Hob Bryan of Amory said since he was elected to the Legislature over 30 years ago, he’s continued to watch the Legislature rubber-stamp the governor’s policy requests and abdicate their power to deliberate as a separate branch of government.

“It’s getting where I do not recognize this Legislature, and I do not recognize this Senate,” Bryan said. “I do not understand why people vote for propositions they think are unwise.”

Over the last several years, Bryan said he’s continued to watch lawmakers insert mistakes into legislation, and he partially blames that on the hurried nature of legislative sessions and an unwillingness of lawmakers to carefully scrutinize bills.

Some Republicans in both chambers also criticized the process, pointing out they were left to quickly consider a lengthy bill that was largely written by legislative leadership, not the rank and file.

Rep. Elliot Burch, one of the few House Republicans to vote against the measure, said the special session did not allow members to properly study the bill and its consequences.

“If by youth court reform you mean placing this 216-page rewrite of Mississippi law in front of me and expect everybody to understand it and know the consequences of it before they vote, I have some problems,” Burch said.

The mother of an 18-year-old who was stomped to death in the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond has filed a wrongful death claim against the sheriff’s office, alleging negligence resulted in her son’s gruesome killing. 

Janice Bradley joined her attorney, Dennis Sweet III, at a Thursday press conference in calling for a full accounting of the events that led to the beating death of her son, Mielun Butler, two days after he was booked into Raymond on July 1.

“My son had a whole life ahead of him,” Bradley said, as she sat next to a poster of him depicted in angel wings.

A video of the beating circulated on Facebook, showing a person wearing black sandals stomping on Butler’s limp and bloody body as someone ordered Butler to say, “Long live Melvin.”

“The sheriff in this case has fallen down,” Sweet said. “That’s a young man in his custody. He’s responsible. There’s no dodging that.”

Butler was being held in Raymond on charges of killing 32-year-old Melvin Edwards at a south Jackson apartment complex known for violence. At Butler’s initial appearance on July 2, Municipal Court Judge Jeffery Reynolds set a $1 million bond, an amount the judge acknowledged the teenager could not post. 

Hinds County Coroner Jeremiah Howard told Mississippi Today last week that the teenager “had shoe prints all over his head.”

The Monday after Butler’s killing, Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones held a press conference to announce that his office and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation had launched separate inquiries. Later that week, Jones told Mississippi Today that a detention officer had been placed on administrative leave with pay.

In response to Thursday’s press conference, Jones said in a written statement that “certain allegations and preliminary findings” had led him to contact the FBI. Mississippi Today is awaiting comment from an FBI spokesperson. 

“I remain committed to transparency, but only in a manner that does not compromise the integrity of the investigations or the pursuit of factual, evidence-based conclusions,” Jones said Thursday. 

Sweet said he believes culpability for Butler’s brutal death extends beyond just one staff member. He said Butler fought for his life, causing a commotion that jail staff should have heard and responded to. He also questioned how the cellphone that recorded Butler’s beating was brought into the jail. 

Last year, Jones ceded operational control of the jail to a federal receiver. Earlier this week, the sheriff confirmed to Mississippi Today that the jail was on lockdown for an operation, but he would not reveal the nature of the operation or its findings. 

Bradley said her son, who had been assigned a public defender, intended to prove his innocence. Sweet said that as a pre-trial detainee, Butler was entitled to his day in court. A Jackson Police Department spokesperson said the agency did not wish to respond. 

Sweet pounded the table as he condemned any contention that Butler deserved to die because he had been charged with a violent crime.

“What’s happening with us and these principles that you’re presumed innocent?” he asked.

Bradley said she wanted justice for her son and for all mothers who have lost children to violence at Raymond. Six people died at the jail last year, including a homicide, a drug overdose and another suspected drug overdose, according to the Marshall Project. 

The mother told reporters that she chose not to watch the video so she would not remember her son that way. She recalled Butler as bright and hard-working, saying he had recently graduated from Lanier High School in Jackson and was working at aWendy’s. 

Butler had carpentry, welding and forklift certificates, and he intended to study business at Hinds Community College, she said. 

Sweet said he called on the FBI to investigate the social media posts and referenced the recent federal investigation into corruption in Jackson that ensnared former Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens and other elected officials. 

“If the FBI can spend time on conspiracies out here, they can spend time on this,” he said. 

READ MORE: Teen stomped to death in Hinds County jail, coroner says

The auditorium walls of Jackson’s Provine High School couldn’t stop the rat-a-tat-tat of snare drums, the bright blasts from trumpets, the bouncing oomphs from tubas and waves of music pulsing into empty hallways. 

The Mississippi Alumni All-Star Band had found its rhythm. 

For the next several minutes, nearly 150 band members — middle school, high school and college students from across the state — would groove together during a Tuesday evening practice in June playing arrangements of “Whisper My Name” by Drake and “Who We Be” by DMX. Musicians swayed in wooden auditorium seats — some studying digital sheet music on their phones — awaiting cues from Travis Prewitt, one of the band’s lead directors and conductors. 

“Horns, I need you to remember to breathe from your diaphragm when we get to the chorus of these songs,” Prewitt said. “Once you’re there, we’ll be solid. I need to hear those notes roar.” 

The all-star summer band, also known as MAAB, has grown to fill a void in arts education, creating one of the largest community training grounds for students hoping to earn college music scholarships. 

In summer 2011, Prewitt, Travis Parks, David Hubbard and the late Christopher Little — four Jackson State University alumni and former members of the Sonic Boom of the South — began gathering friends and local musicians to teach hundreds of Mississippi students to perform “show style,” the high-stepping, high-energy music and traditions typically associated with marching bands at historically Black colleges and universities. 

Fifteen years later, the group’s grassroots network of band directors across the state and throughout the South connects students with mentors and resources to help them pursue HBCU band auditions and paths to college. 

“You don’t have to know how to read music perfectly. You don’t even have to have an instrument,” said Hubbard, who is also the co-founder of Mississippi Music Institute, a nonprofit organization that works with the all-star band to raise money and recruit students for arts and music programs. “You just have to have the spirit of wanting to be a better musician.” 

Since its inception, nearly half of the students in the band have gone on to earn scholarships at Jackson State, Alcorn State, Mississippi Valley State and other HBCUs, Hubbard said. The band receives small grants from local arts organizations but mostly collects money through self-sustaining neighborhood barbecue plate fundraisers and concession stand sales to pay for students’ uniforms, travel to competitions and rental rehearsal spaces. 

Training the next generation of Mississippi musicians 

For months starting each May, students in the mass band train as collegiate-level musicians. 

Prewitt and the group’s five other rotating band directors drill their musicians with four to five new compositions each week. They teach breathing techniques.

Those lessons serve two purposes: sharpening students’ skills and giving them an edge against other young musicians from bigger Southern cities such as Memphis, Atlanta and New Orleans, who are also vying for scholarships and spots in HBCU marching bands. 

“This gives us a chance to teach and show it to them in real time while they’re playing next to a trumpet player from Jackson State, Alcorn or Mississippi Valley,” Prewitt said. “Then after the (summer band) season is over, they then go back to their own schools and colleges and share what they learned with other peers.” 

Leonard Martin, a band director at Lanier Jr. Sr. High School in Jackson, said he taps his gifted music students at the end of the school year to join the summer ensemble. That’s how he began his journey. 

Little, who was one of the MAAB founders and a former band director of Jackson’s Jim Hill High School before he died in 2023, encouraged Martin to join the mass band program as a trombone player in 2013. The summers in the ensemble eventually helped Martin earn a music scholarship and a spot in JSU’s Sonic Boom.

“It kept me out of the streets of Jackson and from being peer-pressured into doing other things,” Martin said. “My involvement has cultivated and molded me to be a band director to lead by example for my students.” 

The summertime ensemble is also a platform for band directors to elevate their careers. Many directors are hired at colleges and universities after gaining visibility through the program, Martin said. 

Finding their tribe among peers  

Corbin Williams didn’t want to join the all-star band at first. 

The 18-year-old Lanier High senior watched his older brother, Keston, practice snare drum cadences and new musical arrangements he learned each week as a member of the band. Williams said he wasn’t keen on the rigor and discipline the musical ensemble required. 

“It was intimidating, and I was lazy and didn’t take the craft of music seriously,” Williams said. 

In 2015, he joined the band to sharpen drumming techniques — musicality, hand-eye coordination, rhythm and most importantly, confidence in sight reading music. Williams also began befriending other drummers. During lulls in rehearsal, they would drill him on musicality and rhythm. 

“My attention span for retaining music, coordination and rhythm has improved so much since I began practicing everyday with MAAB,” Williams said. “I get better when I’m around them. I see what’s possible for me.” 

Williams plans to audition for the Sonic Boom this fall. The all-star band rehearsals give him a glimpse of what he might experience. 

“It’s just preparing myself and making sure I have all the tools that I need to be able to succeed,” he said.

Auiyhna Scott, a senior studying computer engineering at Jackson State and a trumpet player in the Sonic Boom, said her involvement with summer mass band also started as a way to connect with her late father, Christopher Little. Since 2024, Scott has mentored the all-star band’s high school students, who ask her about the music craft, HBCU band audition prep and academics. 

“You’re spending your nights playing with all these new students from different backgrounds and they’re coming up to you looking for advice on how to get better at the craft or ace auditions,” Scott said. “Sometimes they even simply ask me what college is like.” 

In the high school’s auditorium on June 16, Prewitt led the band through one final rehearsal. In a few days, the Mississippi ensemble would have to defend their home turf against mass marching bands from Baton Rouge, Nashville and Memphis at an annual community competition, the Independence Showdown Battle of the Bands. 

The group had been practicing since 5:30 p.m. The first half-hour was dedicated to scales and warm-ups. Then the band did an hour of team sectionals. For 40 minutes, they practiced  marching across Provine’s blacktop before the full-band rehearsals. 

If they were lucky, they’d finish practice by 10 p.m. Maybe. 

“Band! Who skedd?” Prewitt commanded the band’s signature rallying cry. No fear. It was time to play. 

One more time. From the top. 

“Who? M-A-A-B,” the group shouted before lifting their instruments.

Most Mississippians who read this column regularly know no other state produces more – or more high-quality – professional football players per capita than the Magnolia State.

Seems like every year a new study comes out that ranks Mississippi either No. 1 or No. 2 in the nation in the number of football players who make NFL rosters. Over the course of the entire history of the NFL, Mississippi ranks No. 1.

A new study – this one published by The Sports Geek, covering the last two decades – finds that Mississippi, per capita, has produced the highest number of male professional athletes of any state. Mississippi was No. 1, followed by Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Said Ryan Metevier, who conducted much of the research: “At first glance, Mississippi’s being a top producer of professional athletes came as a surprise to me, considering it’s not home to any professional teams in major leagues, and isn’t one of the richer states in the country.”

Metevier went on: “However, Mississippi ranks about the middle of the pack in number of Division I college football and basketball teams. A passionate culture of high school sports and favorable training weather make up for other shortcomings.”

Surely, Mississippi’s high participation level in football, basketball and baseball also factors in. For instance, Mississippi annually ranks highest among all states in the percentage of high school students who play those three sports.

Another factor for Mississippi’s No. 1 ranking in football and basketball should not be ignored. The Magnolia State also has the highest percentage of Black residents of any state. Mississippi, at 38%, ranks ahead of Louisiana at 33% and Georgia at 32%. Approximately 54% of NFL players and about 75% of NBA players are Black.

The Sports Geek study covers seven sports: football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, tennis and soccer. As you might guess, Mississippi does not rank high at all in producing hockey pros. We more than make up for it in football, basketball and baseball.

Obviously, I wasn’t surprised about the NFL, where Mississippi ranked No. 1.

I was surprised that the state also ranked No. 1 in producing professional basketball players and No. 4 in producing baseball players who make it to the highest level of their sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, etc.).

Those high rankings more than made up for relatively low rankings in the other four sports: 28th in golf, 30th in tennis, 38th in hockey and 46th in soccer. 

Actually, I was surprised to learn Mississippi ranked as highly as 38th of 50 in producing hockey pros. Fun fact: Mississippi has produced a grand total of one NHL player. He is seven-year NHL veteran Mathieu Olivier, who was born in Biloxi in February 1997. And, yes, there’s a story there. Olivier’s dad, Canadian Simon Olivier, played for the minor league Mississippi Sea Wolves back then. Mathieu Olivier, who plays for the NHL Columbus Blue Jackets, lived on the Gulf Coast only briefly before his dad moved the family back to Quebec. 

Several states, including Tennessee, which has its own NHL franchise, have never produced a single NHL player. Of 714,495 male births in Mississippi over 20 years, Mathieu Olivier is one of one. So, if you don’t learn anything else today, you learned that.

Let’s see what else we can learn. Another fun fact: The study shows that one in every 2,813 males born in Mississippi over the past 20 years has become an NFL player. That’s a lot. Furthermore, one in every 15,533 males born in the state since 2006 has become an NBA player. That ranks No. 1 in the U.S., too. Why so many more football players than basketball players? Simple: Because there are 32 NFL teams with 53-man rosters and 30 NBA teams with 15-man rosters. Statistically, it’s simply harder to make the NBA than the NFL. Plus, in basketball, as we all know, you almost have to be tall.

I have no statistics to prove it, but I would guess that Mississippi’s No. 4 ranking in producing pro baseball players has risen sharply in the 21st century. Seems as if more Mississippians get drafted by MLB teams – and in higher rounds – every year. Only Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio produce more MLB players per capita than we do.

Louisiana, not surprisingly, was second to Mississippi in both football and basketball. Kentucky, a basketball state if there ever was one, was third in hoops. Ohio, definitely a football state, was third in that sport.

Mississippians surely would prefer to rank No. 1 in per capita income (we are last in the nation) or in overall health (we are 48th). But at least we can play ball. And our ball players, at least, are healthy and make millions.

With legislative adjustments and new outside help, Mississippi’s Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council will return to Jackson on Tuesday to begin its second cycle of grant recommendations. 

Council members will meet downtown at 1 p.m., on the first floor of the Mississippi Supreme Court Building. An email from the office of Attorney General Lynn Fitch, the council’s chairwoman, to members said there will be a virtual video option but didn’t provide a link. 

This year, the council has contracted with the Denver-based health consulting firm Steadman Group to assist with its review process. The company has previously contracted other states to help with their opioid settlement management.

Dr. J.K. Costello, Steadman’s behavioral health and consulting director and someone in long-term addiction recovery himself, said the firm has been meeting weekly with Fitch’s office since early July. So far, he said, the firm has been reviewing the opioid settlement grants already awarded by the Mississippi Legislature and identifying what’s most needed for addiction response efforts of different parts of the state.

The council, established by state lawmakers in 2025, oversees how Mississippi spends hundreds of millions of dollars the state receives from the National Opioids Settlements — lawsuit agreements with companies that contributed to the country’s opioid epidemic. Every state and the District of Columbia accused over a dozen companies of using business practices that catalyzed hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths. 

Of the roughly $430 million the state expects from the lawsuits through 2040, the advisory council is tasked with recommending how to spend about $300 million of that. The settlements say the council funds must be spent to address addiction. Mississippi was the only state in the country that hadn’t started spending this chunk of money by 2024, according to a KFF Health News investigation. Mississippi also didn’t spend any of it in 2025. 

Last year, at the instruction of Mississippi’s Legislature, the council created an application process for the funds, reviewed and graded over 100 project proposals and recommended which ones state lawmakers should fund. 

The council members had five months to accomplish those tasks, which some members said made it difficult to effectively determine which efforts would best address the state’s opioid epidemic. After its first 2025 meeting in July, the committee delayed launching the application a month after members identified missing material. Applicants then had six weeks to apply, a deadline some Mississippi organizations also struggled to meet. 

Other issues arose later in the fall. Small groups of members initially graded the proposals, and the average application score varied significantly from group to group. Many of the applications that scored highly were authored by organizations affiliated with the council members, and members could advocate for applications they were tied to at meetings. The committee also didn’t review multiple applications that were turned in properly.

After receiving the council’s final 2025 recommendations, legislators didn’t strictly follow them. With the funds the council oversees, they chose to fund around $51 million for applications during the 2026 regular legislative session. Lawmakers left out several applications most recommended by the council and chose to fund some projects the council graded poorly, in addition to sending money to state agencies for purposes unattached to any advisory council application. Lawmakers identified two applications the council forgot to assess and tried to fund those proposals as well, but Gov. Tate Reeves line-item vetoed those applicants’ funds. 

In addition, the Legislature adjusted many of the council’s recommended application funding amounts through power lawmakers gave themselves in a bill they passed in the spring. The new law also strengthened the council’s conflicts of interest laws, added new reporting requirements for state opioid funds and required the committee to contract with an outside consulting group that could assist members in their review process — a contract that ultimately was awarded to Steadman.

Organizations the Legislature awarded opioid settlement funds started receiving money after June 30, when Mississippi’s 2027 fiscal year started. 

Michelle Williams, Fitch’s chief of staff, told Mississippi Today in May the two applications vetoed by Reeves were the only ones she knew of that the council didn’t review because of committee administrative errors. To the news outlet and other reporters, she has described the Attorney General’s handling of the council as building a system while also implementing it. 

“The process may not be what we would have loved it to have been, but we’ve got a process now,” she said. “And we are going to do everything we can through this office to make it move.”

The House is expected on Thursday to take up a measure to overhaul the state’s youth court system, after the Senate passed it late Wednesday night in a special session of the Mississippi Legislature called by Gov. Tate Reeves.

The legislation would add more full-time judges and open youth court proceedings to the public, and lawmakers are also proposing to provide $29.5 million in new spending for the system.

The 52-member Senate passed the youth court overhaul 25-10 after much debate, with several members absent or not voting. The House is expected to take it up on Thursday. 

Despite lawmakers only having hours to review the nearly 200-page proposal, Senate Judiciary A Chairman Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, told senators to approve the bill to improve the lives of kids who appear in youth court. 

“We were sent here by our districts to do what’s best for the interests of the state and our state’s children,” Wiggins said. 

READ MORE: Reeves: Special session will overhaul Mississippi’s ‘fragmented’ youth court system. Here’s how

READ MORE: Youth court special session has lawmakers meeting at new, and old, capitol buildings. See photos

Lawmakers don’t normally meet during the summer, but Reeves called them into a special legislative session to consider youth court changes and to keep the system running after enabling and funding legislation had sunsetted and lawmakers failed to address it in their regular session early this year. 

The governor caught legislators off guard by quickly announcing the special session on Tuesday afternoon, giving them only 24 hours to come to Jackson. 

The hurried nature of the session drew bipartisan rebuke from lawmakers who said they didn’t have an opportunity to read the far-reaching bill before the session convened at 3 p.m. on Wednesday. 

Sen. Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, supported the intent of the bill, but he criticized the process and described the Senate’s actions as rubber stamping the governor’s request instead of deliberating as a separate branch of government. 

“I don’t know what the rest of you said when you ran for public office but I didn’t run on a platform of ‘I’ll do what I’m told,’” Bryan said. 

The goal of the bill is to scrap Mississippi’s current disjointed youth court system. Only 24 of Mississippi’s 82 counties have a full-time judge handling youth court cases. In most of these instances, county court judges handle youth court matters. But not every county has a county court. 

In the remaining counties, these matters are handled by “part-time referees,” which is a part of chancery court. The proposal passed by the Senate would do away with referees and replace them with full-time chancery court judges. 

The governor will appoint the new chancery court judges, but they will later have to run for election. 

Youth court proceedings were thrown into confusion when lawmakers during their regular 2026 session mistakenly let state laws that outline how confidential youth court records can be shared between courts, state agencies, attorneys and law enforcement expire.

When a repealer, or sunset clause, is included in a state law, the law or a section goes away on a specified date unless the Legislature votes to reenact it. Because the Legislature didn’t pass a measure extending the repealer, those confidentiality measures and other youth court laws and funding expired.

After the confidentiality measures expired, three individual youth court judges entered their own local orders for how confidential youth court records can be shared. 

This prompted Child Protection Services to file an emergency request with the Mississippi Supreme Court asking the state’s highest court to block those local orders from going into effect because the state agency argued the local judges did not have the power to issue them.

The Supreme Court unanimously granted the request, blocked lower courts from issuing their own local orders and established temporary rules for confidentiality. 

The Senate proposal would revive the state law on confidentiality and allows it to sunset July 2029. 

Mississippi Today will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a two-day gathering focused on civic dialogue, community impact and the future of Mississippi.

The nonprofit news organization invites readers, supporters, business leaders, policymakers and changemakers from across the South to gather in Jackson for conversation, celebration and connection.

The anniversary celebration is Oct. 7 and the second annual “All In on Mississippi” summit is Oct. 8, both at the Two Mississippi Museums in downtown Jackson.

For the past decade, Mississippi Today has reported on the people, policies and communities shaping the state. Through investigative reporting, accountability journalism and community-centered storytelling, it has become an essential part of the state’s civic fabric.

“This anniversary is an opportunity to celebrate the people, communities and stories that have shaped Mississippi Today,” said Editor in Chief Emily Wagster Pettus. “It is also a chance to look ahead and bring together leaders from across Mississippi to discuss what the next decade of public service journalism looks like in our state.”

Mississippi Today 10th Anniversary Celebration

The Mississippi Today 10th Anniversary Celebration begins at 7 p.m. Oct. 7. With live music, immersive visuals and special guest appearances, the celebration offers participants a chance to connect with people and stories behind the headlines and to gain insight into the future of independent reporting in the South. The event is designed as a tribute to democracy and communities that thrive when truth is told.

‘All In on Mississippi’ summit

“All In on Mississippi” is Mississippi Today’s flagship event focused on innovative solutions, economic opportunity and community impact. The summit begins at 1 p.m. Oct 8, convening leaders from government, business, education, workforce development, philanthropy and journalism for conversations about the state’s future.

Sessions will focus on sustainable solutions for a thriving economy. Topics will include:

• Boots on the Ground: Mississippi Industry, AI and the Future of Work 
• A New Era for Apprenticeship Programs in Mississippi 
• The Literacy Launching Point and What Comes Next
• Mississippi on the National Stage

Additional speakers and agenda details will be announced soon. Presenting support is provided by JPMorgan Chase. The Foundation for the MidSouth is an Impact Sponsor. 

Tickets and registration

Celebration tickets are available beginning at $150. Additional ticket options include table sales and event sponsorships.

Tickets for the “All In on Mississippi” are $25.

Sponsorship opportunities available

People and organizations interested in supporting this anniversary and summit can reach out directly to sponsorships@mississippitoday.org. 

Sponsorship opportunities include event visibility, digital promotion, recognition throughout anniversary programming and participation in one of Mississippi’s most significant civic gatherings of the year.

Learn More

Additional information, registration details and sponsorship opportunities are available at: https://summit.mississippitoday.org/

7/16/2026: This article has been corrected to show the Foundation for the MidSouth is an Impact Sponsor.

BELZONI — Harmony Ball-Stribling’s path to pregnancy had been turbulent, from an endometriosis diagnosis to an arduous in vitro fertilization process and sky-high blood pressure. But as her due date approached in the summer of 2021, her health improved and those storm clouds seemed to scatter.

“It was just too perfect,” said her mother, Shenelle Ball-Green, of those calm, hot weeks.

Then, after midnight on July 5, four days shy of her scheduled cesarean section, Ball-Stribling began experiencing complications from preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening blood pressure disorder. Speeding up to 110 mph, her husband drove her to the nearest hospital 25 miles away from their home in Belzoni, a Mississippi Delta town of about 1,900 people.

Minutes before reaching the facility, Ball-Stribling suffered a seizure in the passenger seat. Her husband pulled her from the car and performed CPR on the side of the road. It was too late. She and the couple’s unborn daughter, Harper, died on the side of U.S. Route 49.

The tragedy might have had a different outcome if the hospital in Belzoni, a five-minute drive from Ball-Stribling’s home, hadn’t closed 13 years ago. Today, Humphreys County has no hospital, no emergency room, no urgent care clinic, and no county health department. It is one of more than 100 rural hospitals in the U.S. that have fully closed since 2005.

In Belzoni, self-proclaimed “The Heart of the Delta,” and its surrounding area, communities are close-knit, and Harmony’s story is well known. Now, her death has galvanized local and state leaders determined to bring a hospital back to the county that has suffered without one.

“It was a tremendous eye-opener for this community,” said state Rep. Timaka James-Jones, a Democrat who represents the district that includes Belzoni and is Ball-Stribling’s aunt. “It brought to light how we are so without.”

Poverty often shapes the health disparities Humphreys County residents experience. Approximately 1 in 7 Humphreys County residents under age 65 lack health insurance coverage, compared with about 1 in 11 people nationwide. Humphreys County also has the highest rate of Medicaid enrollment of any Mississippi county, reflecting the economic challenges many residents face. These disparities are evident in the county’s infant mortality rate, which is among the highest in the state at roughly 15 deaths for every 1,000 births.

James-Jones has watched these circumstances influence the lives — and deaths — of her loved ones. She said she wants to see a hospital reestablished before her four-year term is up in early 2028.

But that may be easier said than done. In Belzoni, local leaders hoping to restore healthcare services face a tangled web of policy challenges that are especially demanding for a small town with limited resources. Its story reflects what many healthcare policy experts warn: Once a rural community loses a hospital, bringing it back can be nearly impossible. 

Humphreys County’s healthcare losses

Humphreys County Memorial Hospital opened in Belzoni in 1951 as part of a nationwide hospital building boom fueled by a Truman-era law called the Hill-Burton Act. The legislation provided billions of dollars in grants and loans to build and modernize healthcare facilities. At the time, roughly 40% of all U.S. counties had no hospital. When the building boom began to subside by 1970, all but seven counties in Mississippi had at least one hospital.

But by the 2000s, many rural hospitals in the U.S. confronted financial difficulties. Low patient volumes, an increase in outpatient care, and meager revenues left many on precarious footing. Many had high rates of uninsured patients or those covered through government programs such as Medicaid, which typically reimburse providers at lower rates than commercial insurers.

Humphreys County’s hospital was among those struggling facilities. It was burdened with millions of dollars in debts, and county officials sold it in 2008 to a private company. It was renamed the Patients’ Choice Medical Center. The hospital shut down five years later after Ray Shoemaker, the company’s CEO, was convicted on healthcare fraud charges related to another hospital he owned.

“I do hope they reopen,” Shoemaker wrote in a recent text message to Mississippi Today. “The community needs a hospital.” He said he stepped down from the company before going to prison in 2012.

In 2017, the University of Mississippi Medical Center partnered with the county supervisors and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat whose district includes Humphreys County, to secure a nearly $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to open an after-hours acute care clinic in Belzoni. The clinic shut down in 2020, and UMMC officials declined to say why. 

G.A. Carmichael Family Health Center, a Canton-based federally qualified health center with five other locations in Mississippi, took it over but did not maintain the extended hours, again leaving Humphreys County residents without after-hours care. Other public health services in the county have closed outright. Three years ago, the county’s health department stopped providing clinical services, said Greg Flynn, a spokesperson for the Mississippi State Department of Health. The county department closed entirely last year, citing staffing shortages and low patient volumes. 

In the years since the hospital closed, the county has lost a fourth of its population, falling to 7,000 people, according to census data. James-Jones said she does not believe the community can experience growth until healthcare services are reestablished. 

“I don’t know how I can see us growing any other way,” she said.

‘Something’s way better than nothing’

Months after losing her daughter and unborn granddaughter, Ball-Green climbed the steps of the stately, tan, brick Humphreys County Courthouse to attend a crowded Board of Supervisors meeting.

She stood at the dais and urged the supervisors to reestablish emergency healthcare services in the county to protect other residents from the fates of her loved ones.

“I wanted to let them know at any given moment, that could be your child, your mother,” she said. “We’re a small town. Everyone knows everyone.”

She remembered the disappointment she felt when the supervisors told her there was nothing they could do. But when the board’s makeup changed after the 2023 elections, she said, she saw these attitudes shift.

Among the newly elected officials was Reggie Pinkston, who is now the president of the board and previously worked as an EMT when the hospital was open. His own family has suffered the consequences of limited healthcare access. A cousin living in Louise, a town about 20 miles south of Belzoni in the county, had a stroke in 2021 and waited an hour for an ambulance to arrive. She died two days later.

Pinkston said witnessing residents’ delays in care has made expanding access to healthcare services one of his priorities.

“We’re losing too many people in our county because of lack of healthcare,” Pinkston said.

The board enlisted several consultants to develop a strategy for expanding healthcare access and identifying funding sources to support these efforts. In late 2025, Thompson secured approximately $1 million for Humphreys County through the congressional Community Project Funding process, which allows lawmakers to request federal support for specific projects. 

The funds will be used to expand services at G.A. Carmichael’s Belzoni location in a county-owned building on U.S. Route 49, Pinkston said. Expansion plans include extending its hours of operation overnight to 5 a.m., purchasing equipment, and a possible renovation of the facility. It could begin its expanded operations by September, said James Coleman Jr., the health center’s CEO.

Establishing an after-hours urgent care clinic is a starting point toward reestablishing emergency care services or a hospital, James-Jones said.

“Something’s way better than nothing,” she said.

‘Not for the faint of heart’

Despite that encouraging first step, Humphreys County faces steep obstacles to opening a hospital.

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, George Pink is a senior research fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research and tracks rural hospital closures across the U.S. He said he’s aware of only a few communities that have successfully reopened a hospital after it closed.

“I can count that on one hand,” said Pink, who knows of roughly five such examples.

Communities face significant hurdles to reestablishing a hospital, including securing financing for construction or renovation, recruiting qualified staff, and covering substantial operating expenses during the licensing process before the facility can treat patients and generate revenue, said Brock Slabach, the National Rural Health Association’s chief operations officer and a former rural hospital administrator in southwestern Mississippi.

“Reopening a hospital is not for the faint of heart,” Slabach said. “Once they close, it’s very difficult to reopen them.”

To finance a potential hospital project in Humphreys County, local and state leaders said they plan to seek funding through the Rural Health Transformation Program, a federal initiative that will distribute $50 billion to states over five years. The federal government allocated Mississippi nearly $206 million in December for the program’s first year.

The program is meant to offset budget cuts passed into law last summer that could harm rural hospitals. Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cut the federal government’s Medicaid spending by $911 billion over 10 years and increase the number of uninsured people by 10 million, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. Mississippi hospitals are projected to lose roughly $160 million annually beginning in 2029, according to Cindy Bradshaw, executive director of the Mississippi Division of Medicaid.

But according to federal guidelines, the program’s funding cannot be used for construction or major building expansions. Officials said the county will instead consider applying for funds through the program to support the recruitment of healthcare professionals.

The federal Rural Emergency Hospital designation is another way rural communities can keep emergency and outpatient services. Hospitals in that program receive over $3 million annually from the federal government and a higher Medicare reimbursement rate, but they cannot offer inpatient care.

Research by Pink’s team shows that many hospitals that converted to the model, which was established in 2023, saw an increase in profitability.

But there’s a catch. To receive the designation, a hospital must have been open in 2020, making Humphreys County ineligible. Mississippi’s junior U.S. senator, Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, introduced legislation in 2024 to extend the cutoff to 2014, a threshold that would have still excluded Humphreys County.

James-Jones said county leaders have urged Hyde-Smith to amend the proposed legislation so Humphreys County could qualify. Hyde-Smith did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

For county leaders, the path to widening healthcare access means navigating a thicket of state and federal policies, funding streams, and regulatory hurdles.

Some recent state-level policy changes have created new opportunities for healthcare expansion in Humphreys County. In March, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed legislation exempting Humphreys County from Mississippi’s certificate of need requirements, which are meant to prevent unnecessary healthcare expansions.

The exemption could make the county more attractive to prospective healthcare providers. But the financial challenges that contributed to the closure of Patients’ Choice Medical Center in 2013 remain, and Mississippi lawmakers have continued to reject Medicaid expansion, limiting a potential source of reimbursement for rural hospitals and clinics.

Industry officials expect hospitals’ financial pressures to intensify as Medicaid funding cuts take effect. The latest challenge is predicting how these cuts will affect the bottom lines of these facilities and whether additional cuts will come in the future, said Richard Roberson, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association.

“If someone’s trying to run a business, they’ve got to be able to know what those numbers look like,” Roberson said. “And it’s really hard to try to project that out right now.”

‘Now I understand’

For Ball-Green, giving in to these obstacles would be a disservice to the Humphreys County residents who face health emergencies similar to the one her daughter experienced.

It has been five years since the funeral, but Ball-Green remembers it clearly.

As friends and family gathered to pay their respects, her mother thought back on a relative’s funeral four months earlier. At that service, Ball-Stribling sang the gospel classic “You Are My Strength” to a roomful of mourners.

“She was singing, and she looked at me,” Ball-Green said, describing a peaceful but eerie expression on her daughter’s face in that moment — a sign of something to come, though she didn’t yet know what. “She turned around, and it was just that look, you know?”

Months later, as she sat at her daughter’s funeral, she began to interpret the foreboding glance differently. She came to believe it was a sign that Ball-Stribling’s gift for helping others by sharing her story would not end with her death.

That purpose had taken shape years earlier in her work as a teacher and continued as she shared candid social media posts about her fertility struggles and IVF journey in the final months of her life. Ball-Green said the community became deeply invested in her and Harper’s story.

In the years since, this gift has endured, she said. Ball-Stribling’s story has continued to resonate throughout Humphreys County, serving as a reminder of what residents stand to lose if they do not reopen the hospital. 

“I think back on when she looked back at me,” Ball Green said. “Now I understand.”

Correction, 7/16/2026: The photo credit for two courtesy photos of Harmony Ball-Stribling are updated to the current name of the person who submitted the photos.

This story was produced in collaboration with KFF Health News.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

The Mississippi Legislature reconvened in Jackson on Wednesday for a special session called by Gov. Tate Reeves to consider an overhaul of the state’s youth court system, which fizzled at the end of the regular session this year and caused some of the laws and funding for youth court to sunset.

But lawmakers faced a major problem: The House chamber in the Capitol is undergoing major renovation and is currently unusable. So, the House is meeting blocks away in the Old Capitol, which is now mostly a museum, while the Senate is meeting in its regular chamber at the Capitol on High Street. The logistics, plus the session being announced by the governor somewhat impromptu on Tuesday afternoon, caused for some scrambling by staff, and grumbling by lawmakers.

READ MORE: Reeves: Special session will overhaul Mississippi’s ‘fragmented’ youth court system. Here’s how

Some lawmakers were at the Southern Legislative Conference in Kentucky when they caught wind Tuesday that they needed to be in Jackson 24 hours later. As lawmakers scrambled to get to Jackson from that conference and from every corner of the state, they received instructions from House staff on how logistics would work at the Old Capitol.

In a text message to lawmakers obtained by Mississippi Today, House members were instructed by Speaker Jason White’s staff to park at the nearby Two Mississippi Museums, where they would then be transported to the Old Capitol on covered golf carts.

Lawmakers are considering reforms to the state’s youth court system that would lead to more full-time judges presiding over cases, the creation of two new state-run juvenile jails and the fixing of expired statutes that have led to several lawsuits.

In total, the proposals call for $29.5 million in new spending on the youth court system. 

Democratic leaders in both chambers said their caucus had “neither seen nor been meaningfully engaged in negotiating,” and some rank-and-file Republican lawmakers said they knew little about the agreement before their return to Jackson.

After gaveling in for a few minutes and honoring two former House members who died last month, Republican Rep. Price Wallace and Democratic Rep. Bo Brown, Speaker Jason White said the House would adjourn until the Senate advanced the youth court legislation.

The Senate Judiciary A Committee began debating the reform measure on Wednesday evening, where Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula who leads the committee, said Mississippi’s current youth court system of part-time referees in rural areas handling youth court cases is failing children.

“The system of referees and the hodgepodge system were not working,” Wiggins said. “It’s certainly not returning outcomes we want and need.”

Before the committee meeting, Sen. Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, attempted but failed through a parliamentary move on Wednesday to simply have lawmakers do away with the sunsets on current laws and funding, and give lawmakers more time to work out an overhaul later.

Bryan said the issue is too important to deal with in a hastily called special session, and that some input from “the 3 million people in this state who might also have some ideas about this matter” should be considered. But Reeves and other proponents of the special session proposal said much work, over a long time, has gone into the bills being presented this week.

Lawmakers worked into Wednesday night, expecting to return Thursday, with continuing into Friday or beyond a possibility.

Lawmakers had been set to reconvene at the Old Capitol building in May to redraw state Supreme Court districts, but Reeves ultimately called that special session off.

The Old Capitol is the site where Mississippi lawmakers once implemented Jim Crow and voted to secede from the Union over slavery. The plan to host a special session there on redistricting drew fierce criticism from Democratic lawmakers, most of whom are Black.

As of now, Reeves has not called a special session on redistricting.

Weeks before the first day of school, teachers across Mississippi say state leaders have made it more difficult for them to access money for classroom supplies. 

Educators have to complete training before they’re able to spend the money the state gives them for classroom supplies, but teachers say the live training has been hard to access — the online meetings have been filled to capacity. Teachers also say that to buy from local vendors, they now have to go through an arduous reimbursement process. 

The money for teachers’ classroom supplies comes from the Education Enhancement Fund, or procurement card program. EEF, established in 2012, gives every K-12 public school teacher $748 — around $25 million in total — to buy supplies for their classrooms. But educators have long said they get the money too late for it to be useful. A report released last year by State Auditor Shad White’s office found that a bulk of the money is locked for teachers as they prepare their classrooms because of the state-mandated Aug. 1 deadline to activate the cards.

This year, Mississippi Department of Education leaders said they wanted to make the process easier for teachers by giving districts access to the money on July 15 and switching from physical cards to a digital wallet platform.

The agency has a one-year $573,000 contract with the platform ClassWallet, according to Shanderia Minor, a spokesperson for the state Education Department. 

The new platform is used in several states and allows teachers to purchase supplies directly from online, pre-approved vendors. State Superintendent Lance Evans said ClassWallet streamlines the process of buying classroom supplies, and the change reflects input from school district leaders across Mississippi. 

One frustration for teachers is that many of the vendors they buy supplies from are not included in the list of more than 160 vendors on ClassWallet’s marketplace, where teachers can spend their EEF money.

According to the state Education Department’s website, five Mississippi-based vendors are approved for teacher reimbursements, as are Walmart and TeachersPayTeachers, an online marketplace for classroom supplies. 

But teachers then have to spend their own money upfront. Additionally, their purchase must be approved before they can be reimbursed. 

If teachers want to buy from local vendors not included on that list, the state Department of Education must first contact that vendor to ensure they’ll give teachers itemized receipts and that the items will be tax exempt. Then the vendor will be added to the list, and teachers can submit reimbursement requests through ClassWallet.

Because of the administrative burden, educators are concerned they’ll have to wait weeks to get their money back.

“The words I’ve heard are ‘insane,’ ‘cumbersome,’ and ‘frustrating,’” said Kelly Riley, executive director of Mississippi Professional Educators. Riley said she’s received numerous emails from educators across the state who are confused by the new process and annoyed by the extra layers of bureaucracy. “There’s just a lot of unknowns at this point.”

White’s office released a statement on social media Tuesday that the education agency has “misinformed the public” about the program and called on the state Education Department to rectify issues with the new process. 

“Teachers will again, through no fault of their own, have to spend their own funds to get classroom supplies while they’re forced to navigate through bureaucratic hoops to get the money promised to them,” the statement reads. “This should not be complicated.”

State Education Department officials say they’ve been communicating with districts for months, but some teachers say the change has caught them by surprise. Additionally, educators must first attend or watch one of five virtual training sessions scheduled this month before their district can activate their accounts. 

Many teachers say they were unable to access the first training on July 13. 

Marie Lane, a longtime special education teacher in north Mississippi, was one of those teachers waiting for the Zoom meeting to start on Monday. 

“At 8:40 a.m., I had my notebook out, my laptop plugging in, all excited,” she said. But as the 9 a.m. meeting started, Lane was still waiting to get in. She got a message a few minutes later that the webinar had reached capacity. 

Lane hopes she can get into one of the other meetings. She’s been gleaning what she can from other educators on social media. That’s how Lane realized how much the state was paying ClassWallet to administer the EEF program. 

“That really grates on my last nerve,” she said. “That’s money that could be spent in the classrooms for these kids.”

She’s doubtful she’ll get what she needs for her class — such as cups for paint to make learning more accessible for her students, a walkie-talkie to communicate with her assistant teacher, dim lamps for her students with sensory needs — before the first day of school on Aug. 3.

“There’s no way at this point I’ll be able to submit a list and get it by the time students are back,” she said. “Lots of times when you’re teaching and someone isn’t getting what we’re doing, you think, ‘If I could run to Walmart real quick for Play-Doh or beads, I could help them.’ But now, if we don’t want to spend our own money, we’re going to have to place an order, wait for it to be accepted and delivered.”

Lane plans to use the money she’s gotten from a recent yard sale and selling items on Facebook to buy the supplies she needs. 

“We as teachers have enough on our plate,” she said. “For special education teachers like me, it’s still required that our students meet certain standards. Meeting those without the supplies we need is going to be really tough.”

Riley said that’s a frustration being voiced by educators across the state. They’re also concerned about the platform’s vendor list, she said, which includes about 50 homeschool-centric vendors.

ClassWallet’s website promotes the new federal tax scholarship program and includes testimonials from homeschoolers and education savings account recipients across the country. 

Jean Cook, a spokesperson for the state education agency, said the homeschool vendors are included on ClassWallet’s list because the platform operates across the country. The Mississippi-specific vendor list will be updated weekly, according to the agency’s website. 

A statement released by the education agency on Monday notes, “Many other states do not have programs like Mississippi’s that give teachers money to buy supplemental instructional materials for their individual classrooms.”

David Bates, a former teacher, is the owner of one of the Mississippi-approved vendors — Old School Learning Depot in Pascagoula. His business provides tutoring services for students after school and sells classroom supplies for teachers. In past years, Bates drove a bus packed with supplies to local schools, allowing teachers to buy in-person with their EEF cards without leaving school property. 

But now, he estimates that the new process will result in a $60,000 loss in revenue for his business because teachers will want to avoid spending their own money.

“For a mom-and-pop shop, that is a pretty big chunk of money,” he said. 

“I’m not combating change,” Bates said. “I just want the opportunity to be part of the change. I’m frustrated about last-minute rollout and last-minute communication about how to make this work for everyone.”

Keyana Hawthorne, an English teacher at Murrah High School in Jackson, was initially skeptical about the agency switching to ClassWallet. Now, she said she hates that she was right. 

Hawthorne plans to attend a training on July 28, which she said conflicts with the professional development she receives in the days leading up to school. Her students return July 29. 

As a result, all of her classroom supplies will come out of her own pocket this year, Hawthorne said. She’s planning to buy them in increments because she can’t afford to buy everything in one go. With two children of her own to buy school supplies for, Hawthorne said she’s overwhelmed, frustrated and disappointed. 

“This is pulling from my little budget, and it makes me question: How are we supposed to survive over here?” she said. “I’m so frustrated right now. This is what happens when teachers aren’t asked to sit at the tables where crucial decisions are being made.”